The Cost of Creativity
The creative life begins with hard work, ends with hard work, and somewhere in the middle there is more hard work. This reflection explores the stamina and obstacles that come with a creative calling.
The blog article follows this announcement!
Maybe you’ve heard that on November 8, from 4–6 pm, Sunday Morning Café welcomes the great musical artist, Javier Mendoza (aka Hobo Cane). We’ll join up with him in the magical setting of Schroer Commons at Eden Seminary in Saint Louis, MO. If you’ve ever attended one of his concerts or purchased one of his many CDs, then you know of his energy and soulfulness. This gathering will include all of that, with a twist. In an intimate setting, you will engage with him in a conversation told in story and song. In preparation, I’ve been studying creative people and the The Cost of Creativitycreative process itself. To my eye, there is an awful lot of overlap between the literature on creativity and the literature on resilience. See if this week’s article helps you unearth a question or two that you might like to ask Javier on November 8? – Dr. Tom
The Cost of Creativity
Until his death in 2006, James Brown used to be known as “the hardest working man in show biz.” I think I might personally know the artist who took up that baton from the Godfather of Soul when he passed. Singer-songwriter Javier Mendoza’s unique blend of from-the-heart authenticity and poetic lyricism started gaining national and international attention, from his home base here in The Lou, right around the time Brown’s career was wrapping up. Since then, it’s been pedal-to-the-metal for this Spanish-American artist, who has taken multitudes with him on his musical explorations.
Challenge Number One: Hard Work
Recently, I asked him to give me a snapshot of his typical workweek. “There is no such thing as a typical workweek for me,” He replied. Instead, Javier took me on a tour of his life by simply recounting the events of the last eight or nine days. It began with a week-long promotional tour through Argentina and Chile. In a longer essay, I might ask him to explore his schedule on a tour like this. Be that as it may, on the way home, his flight got rerouted. This resulted in a very hard day’s night.
Nonetheless, his duties as a dad pulled him out of bed at 6:00 am the next morning to get his son breakfast and a ride to school. Between dropping him off and picking him up at three, he compressed a mountain of work into 6 hours. That list included: household chores, promoting & scheduling shows, booking musicians, working setlists & charts, editing music, creating ads, having meetings, and going over songs. After more dad duties on the back end of his day, he returned to the work that he set aside at 2:30. He was looking forward to a week of getting caught up, with only one appearance in his adopted city of Nashville. Out of the blue, a promoter invited him to open for The Little River Band in Saint Louis this weekend. Besides being a way-cool opportunity, that gig will require an unexpected, 24-hour round trip. “This is the normal week for me,” He said. “Then again, that could change at any moment.” All of this is to say that his thirty-year career as a successful musician is…well…hard work, and it doesn’t appear to be letting up anytime soon.
In summary, through the lens of Javier’s career, it seems to me that the creative life begins with hard work; it ends with hard work; in the middle is hard work. If challenge number one requires stamina, the second universal challenge to the creative vocation is something I’ll call “external obstacles.”
External Obstacles to the Creative Calling
I met Javier long before his musical vocation lifted off. I was a lay campus minister at his Newman Center at Washington University. Part of my responsibility was to make sure that quality music and musicians covered the two Sunday liturgies. Then, as now, twenty-something Javier carried himself with warmth and openness. I can recall a kind of timidity, or humility, as he approached with his request: “Can you guys use another guitar and voice in your 9:00 pm group?”
If I’d known who this was, and what he was offering, I would have instantly signed him on the spot, as if I were The Colonel and he were Elvis (BTW, He’s way better than Elvis!). As it happened in real life, if my response were plotted on a graph, it would be recorded at least two standard deviations away from enthusiasm. “If you’re willing to audition…we’ll see. Our group is no place for somebody to learn how to play guitar.” Fortunately, he shook off my bucket of ice water, in the same way that he has climbed over, around, and through dozens of people and circumstances that have stood in the way of his calling to create.
What I’m learning about Creatives is that each and every one of them must confront a significant external challenge at some point in their careers. In any Hero’s Journey, the main character is faced with an existential threat. It is precisely in that struggle where previously unknown abilities and virtues are revealed. Likewise, successful artists have to figure out how to use their obstacles as grist for the artistic mill. I don’t imagine that the prerequisite for the creation of Feeling Groovy required Paul Simon to wrestle with life’s hard edges. On the other hand, I can’t imagine that he could have written The Boxer, Sound of Silence, or Graceland, without facing some pretty stout obstacles in his own vocation as a Creative.
Internal Obstacles to the Creative Vocation
Just like Javier Mendoza inherited James Brown’s title of “hardest working man in show biz,” ever since my mom died, I know that her title, “The Most Loquacious Human Being On Earth,” passed to me. Fully aware of this tendency, I have decided to conclude this article midway through my topic of challenges to the creative vocation. As a result, next week, I’ll return to this theme, bending my reflection toward the characteristic internal obstacles that a Creative must face in pursuing their vocation.
A Shout Out for Interview Questions
Regular readers will know that this space is usually reserved for reflection questions with a friend, a group, or even just a journal. This week, I want to try something a little different. I’m going to ask you, my reader, to come up with the questions. In other words, what topics would you like to hear Javier Mendoza explore when we get together? I would be so grateful if you could just take a moment to surface a question or two, and send them to me in the comments section of Sunday Morning Café’s blog that appears at the end of this essay.
Our mission statement for Sunday Morning Café states that “What is deepest within us is most universal between us.” With that in mind, you might explore your own creative journey as a fruitful place to locate a question for Javier.
Based on the few breadcrumbs about his life contained within this article, did you find any points where you could relate to his journey? Maybe this would be a fruitful place to surface a question or two?
Please share with the SMC community your thoughts and/or reflections in the comments below.
I would be interested in hearing his view of the immigration crisis we are experiencing today and if it has influenced any of his most recent works.
Does he see the influx of AI into music having an effect on independent artists like himself?
I am always curious to hear singer/songwriters share whether, for them, the music comes to them first, or the lyrics, most typically. What are you listening to right now, if we opened your phone to your chosen music outlet?
(not a question, but your song "Always There" has always been one of my favorites. Thank you for creating it!)
What artists have most inspired you over your career? Can you tell us about the moment when you realized you were going to be an artist in public, performing your work in front of others?
To Javier : what was your inspiration behind the song “Waiting” on one of your first albums. Was there much input by other band members?
How did/do you go through the process of selecting other band members?
How do/did you decide, in your songs, what to sing in Spanish and what to sing in English?
To Javier: What does your daily creative practice look like? What part of your practice do you slog through to get to what you really want to be doing? What is the thing you do that feels indulgent and delicious that feeds your soul and fills your artist cup? What are the patterns you recognize that alert you to needing a reset in your creative work? What is your current most necessary component to your daily creative practice? What does a day off look/feel like to you? When do you feel the most free in your creative work? Do you ever dive into other creative practices to learn something new about yourself?