Laura Straus
"When was the last time you painted a picture, made up a song, put on a play? If you remember back that far, you are ahead of most adults." This past fall, while I was teaching a residency for the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Public Programs department, Kenn Rabin, a teacher and filmmaker, sent me an email with that question.
Was it so very difficult to find inspiration when we were young? Not really. It was far easier to lose it, though. There were always voices from our parents, our siblings, our peers, and our teachers that convinced us that we were not very good at mathematics or couldn’t draw (I was told to stay away from mathematics). The truth of it is that anyone can draw. (Mr. Landry, my algebra teacher, told me in 9th grade that I could make it to calculus by the end of high school, but I was lucky to have his positive voice in my ear.) So, take a pen, make a line, and watch the ink spread over the page. Do it in sand, or on a rock wall. It’s all the same to me. Will you, is more to the point. Will you take the risk, put your line on the page, make mistakes, and be resilient enough to take the criticism? This is the challenge I pose to my students.
I was selected from over 150 NYFA Artist Fellowship recipients in 2002 to launch NYFA’s community residency project for its Public Programs department. The residency was developed in partnership with the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University. I led a photo workshop with high school and college students at the Groton High School and the Tompkins Cortland Community College. In preparation to teach the students, I was reminded of the teachers who had changed my life, and how their words and lives inspired me to continue my work in spite of the doubts, failures, and/or successes of my life working as a photographer in New York City. The workshop in Groton included lectures, one-on-one critiques, and public speaking events at the school board, the Groton Public Library, and at a public meeting with artists in Ithaca. I spoke to the students about my 15-year history working in photography, a story of change and transition from a career as an editor to one as a photographer. I was excited by the work students showed me during our critique sessions; their photographs were windows into their lives and concerns. We concentrated together on The 2 Project (which aimed to visually define the word, or the number, two), and would later culminate in an exhibition, a website, and a book. The students helped me articulate the basis of my own creative process. It was their words, inspiration, and collective enthusiasm that kindled the program, and I was honored to be a part of their experience.
Creativity doesn’t fade on its own: we do our best to kill it, or let it grow stale, because we cannot tolerate how naked and uncertain it can make us feel. For me, teaching photography is a meditation on this concept. It is a story about how failure and success are really the same. Is it possible that success and failure are integral parts of learning to reach outside one’s self? Might it be that in any endeavor that truly connects us, any task where we strive to live fully and reach our potential, we are carving on the wall, and possibly entering into the act of becoming—a far more interesting pursuit than that of being? For me, the best teaching engages in a dialogue about fearlessness. Photography, drawing—or business, for that matter—is a balance between mastering the rules, then challenging them. What distinguishes a great photographer from a real estate tycoon? I would posit that risk is an essential component for success, and failure is one of the natural outcomes of worthwhile endeavors. What is success but the repeated effort to engage in the pursuit? What is collaboration but the exchange of ideas in the hopes of a whole greater than the sum of the parts?
While teaching, I try to convey that beyond the challenge of knowing one’s craft there is a dialogue to be had (whether finding a first job, applying for college, publishing a book, speaking in public) that is as creative an act as taking the photograph. Is it possible that including other voices—the act of collaboration—is an essential component for inspiration? Is creativity then defined by the ability to teach, to be taught, to find room for failure, for success, for both, for two? I would say, yes.
Laura Straus is the author of A Child’s World, published by Hearst Publications, and has also published eight photography books with Andrews & McMeel Publishers. She is currently working on a long-term project on the American family. To visit The 2 Project page on NYFA’s website, go to www.nyfa.org/publicworks.
The 2 Project is made possible with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
