As you may recall, I have avoided “art class” for some weeks now, beginning before the holidays. My reasons are not, I realize, just because I have been experiencing pervasive fatigue and can’t be anywhere for three hours and stay alert, but also because I have not found this particular class to be that exciting or involving. I might conceivably join some other class down the road. I don’t remember being this uninvolved back in “the day” when I attended classes in Chicago as a 20-something.

Because the teacher, Stan, is renting not far from our place, I run into him from time to time. These exchanges are always pleasant and I know there will be social occasions where I will see him as we have mutual friends. He also came to our faux boat parade party and Ed and I dropped in to his Christmas Day open house.

Today I got an E mail from the woman handling logistics for the art class. She usually lets us know if there will be a change of time or date or venue. This time she sent us a questionnaire lifted from a book that Twyla Tharp wrote some years ago on the psychological origins of one’s creativity. Stan would like us all to answer this questionnaire. Here it is, if you have the strength to read it through.

Your Creative Autobiography
(Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit, page 45 and 46)

1. What is the first creative moment you remember?
2. Was anyone there to witness or appreciate it?
3. What is the best idea you’ve ever had?
4. What made it great in your mind?
5. What is the dumbest idea?
6. What made it stupid?
7. Can you connect the dots that led you to this idea?
8. What is your creative ambition?
9. What are the obstacles to this ambition?
10. What are the vital steps to achieving this ambition?
11. How do you begin your day?
12. What are your habits? What patterns do you repeat?
13. Describe your first successful creative act.
14. Describe your second successful creative act.
15. Compare them.
16. What are your attitudes toward: money, power, praise, rivals, work, play?
17. Which artists do you admire most?
18. Why are they your role models?
19. What do you and your role models have in common?
20. Does anyone in your life regularly inspire you?
21. Who is your muse?
22. Define muse.
23. When confronted with superior intelligence or talent, how do you respond?
24. When faced with stupidity, hostility, intransigence, laziness, or indifference in others, how do you respond?
25. When faced with impending success or the threat of failure, how do you respond?
26. When you work, do you love the process or the result?
27. At what moments do you feel your reach exceeds your grasp?
28. What is your ideal creative activity?
29. What is your greatest fear?
30. What is the likelihood of either of the answers to the previous two questions happening?
31. Which of your answers would you most like to change?
32. What is your idea of mastery?
33. What is your greatest dream?

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Would I just be too fussy if I thought these questions in the main are incredibly intrusive from, basically, a stranger, to whom I have not applied for a grant in aid and who is not my therapist? I am planning to ignore it.

xx, Teal