In my August column, as I was pondering CA's fiftieth anniversary, I suggested that we look back over our own careers and, instead of identifying what has changed, find the themes that have repeated. What influences remain and recur? I asked myself this question, and I began to see underlying principles that have helped me to progress in my work, whether it’s writing, teaching, designing or making art. Perhaps you will consider these for your own list.

Explore another kind of language
In 1998, I attended an art exhibit called Drawing is Another Kind of Language. The title was based on a statement by the sculptor Richard Serra: “Often, when you want to understand something, you have to take it apart or apply another kind of language to it. Drawing is another kind of language.”

Around that time, I watched the PBS series Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach. It is one of the best examples I have seen of this concept, that is, exploring another medium in order to deepen one’s understanding. Yo-Yo Ma has been playing the Bach Cello Suites since he was four. He invited artists from other disciplines (a choreographer, filmmaker, architect, landscape designer, Kabuki actor and figure skaters) to collaborate with him and interpret the Cello Suites in their own mediums. Yes, he wanted to share this lifelong source of inspiration with others. And there was something more: He could deepen his own understanding of something he loves by not only seeing it, but also performing it through the “eyes” of another medium.

Acknowledge filters of culture, history and media
In his essay “Death of the Author,” French literary critic Roland Barthes explains that the meaning of a work does not come from its author; it comes from the reader. Writing, art, music, etc. takes on meaning at the time that it is read, seen or heard.

During the spring of 2001, I came across a powerful picture of six women wearing chadors. The photograph was visually stunning, and I tacked it to my wall. It was just months before 9/11. On that day in September, my interpretation of the image changed completely. What had once been a photograph of beautiful shapes became, for me, a picture of my ignorance. Whatever the photographer’s intention may have been, it was overshadowed by the context of the moment.

Another filter is the medium through which we receive our information. As Marshall McLuhan so famously said, the medium is the message. The video footage that is shown on, say, network TV news delivers a different meaning than the same footage viewed via a YouTube clip in a personal e-mail. The more we pay attention to these filters, the more critically aware we can be about the information that we consume and deliver.

Trust your excitement meter
I have an internal gauge, an indicator of what I find interesting and worth pursuing. I call it my excitement meter. When I have a positive reaction to something, I take care to notice it. These ideas and events accumulate, and at some later point I see a pattern that represents what I want and need. I do my best and most innovative work when I act on those patterns.

Nourish and maintain support
I regularly quote the artist Robert Irwin who said, “I would think the most immoral thing one can do is have ambitions for someone else's mind.” I rely on his words as a guidepost in my teaching, my collaborations and my personal relationships. We need to defend our own ambitions, and at the same time respect and support those of others. The most generous way to help someone strengthen his or her work is to ask questions that encourage that person's own reflection-much more generous than saying, “Here's what you should do.”

Use everything
Years ago, I was talking with a friend about my various activities. I was excited as I told him about my week: one day I was working with a choreographer on a photography book, the next day I was writing a column about collaboration, and the next I was teaching a class on media and expression. He said, “You're all over the place.”

I was taken aback. How awful! Am I scattered? Do I lack continuity? What kind of a stupid career path is this?! Then I thought about the people I admire in the arts who bring their experience from one discipline to another, enhancing their own-and others'-creative output. Rather than apologizing for engaging in disparate subjects, I realized that I should accept my tendency to be “all over the place.” As a wise professor once told me, “Use everything.” CA

^{(c) 2009 W. Richmond}