The Importance of Being Artists

This article is and isn’t related to Black Swan. It’s not about acting or awards. It was brought about, at least in part, by the recent revelation that professional dancer Sarah Lane was not given proper credit for her contributions as a dance double in Black Swan and that her performance was (inadvertently or otherwise) attributed to Natalie Portman. There’s a lot of debate surrounding the situation and I don’t want to contribute to it; but I think we can all agree that Lane deserved to be properly credited for her performance. I’ve read a lot of commentary on it and dancers have said that unless you are a dancer or have an understanding of ballet you won’t necessarily understand the gravity of Lane’s affront. For example, the fouettés in the black swan pas de deux may seem even just moderately difficult to the untrained eye, but most people won’t know that Sarah Lane executing them to the left is something a lot of dancers will strive for with few actually succeeding. Her performance was the result of her own natural ability paired with years of training. Basically, we might live in an age of instant gratification, but it’s impossible to become a ballet dancer in a year as the marketing scheme for Black Swan seemed to suggest.

But Black Swan wasn’t really about ballet. Whether or not Portman did the dancing doesn’t change her performance as an actress. Lane should have been given credit, but at least she’s being acknowledged now, even if she had to fight for that acknowledgment on her own. So now we get to the part where this article isn’t related to Black Swan.

One thing the situation did was remind me of the constant struggle for artists. If our arts aren’t ravenously popular in mainstream media it can be a huge trial, maybe even an impossibility, for us to make a career of it. So in the spirit of art I wanted to spotlight a few people who I think have selflessly gone above and beyond to contribute to the world of art even when such a small audience appreciates it.

Photograph courtesy of the Academy of Dance and Creative Arts (ADaCA)

Above is my sister, Chelsea Clow in a guest performance with the Academy of Dance and Creative Arts, a company founded by Russian dancers Julia Vorobieva and Konstantinev Dournev in Hunter, New York. My sister took her first dance class when she was about five years old; I joined not long after, but…let’s just say it didn’t take. I’ll spare you all the penguin costume and tap shoes. For Chelsea, though, it did take. In a big way. She never stopped and eventually she began training seriously, after eleven years of which she was invited to audition for her first company at eighteen. In between there were summer intensives at Julliard and the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) in New York as well as at Alonzo King’s LINES in San Francisco, not to mention awards and acknowledgments – yes, I’m bragging for her. I’m allowed; it comes with being a sister.

Photograph courtesy of the Academy of Dance and Creative Arts (ADaCA)

Though I’ve been watching her dance for most of our lives she continues to surprise me with what she’s capable of achieving and I’m immensely proud of her for having the determination and passion to pursue an artistic career even when such a small portion of our society acknowledges it. I don’t know that I would’ve found the courage to pursue my writing if I hadn’t grown up alongside her, watching her devote every single day to dance. Sometimes it’s beyond talent or ability; art is about devotion. She always had a natural ability, a lot of people have said so (and when you watch her dance it’s impossible not to think she must have been born with it), but she knew from the beginning that it wasn’t enough to just be good at it. She had to cultivate her talent, grow with it, and learn, learn a lot. She never gave up on dance and it never gave up on her. She has done and continues to do amazing things, for audiences big and small, for herself and for her art. She’s proven that not all of us artists care to be celebrities; we just want to be able to support ourselves as we endeavor to devote our lives to what we’re passionate about.

ArtEstilo gallery in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexio
Photograph courtesy of Berenice Para

Art is in a constant struggle to survive, but it isn’t working alone. Berenice Para, author of ArtFashion and the creative mind behind Sickening Beauty, is not only an artist of multiple mediums herself, but a woman devoted to the resurgence of arts obscured by mainstream media. Art is as relevant and regular in her life as the air she breathes. In October of last year she undertook her dream of opening an art gallery to share the work of local artists with the tourists in her home city of San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato, Mexico. Her mother joined her as the helm of the business end while Bere interacted and coordinated with artists. Their gallery, ArtEstilo, opened in late January of this year after three months of negotiations, financial dealings and the hunt for the perfect location. After all their work they were forced to close ArtEstilo’s doors just recently due to financial pressure and the poor economic state.

“It was heartbreaking, humbling and discouraging,” Bere wrote to me when I asked her about the details of ArtEstilo’s short but passionate existence. “I admit I had a very rough time facing reality and accepting the consequences. There have been a lot of ‘could-haves’ and ‘would-haves’ running around in my brain and many things to figure out. Do I regret it? Not one bit. You see, if I hadn’t risked it, I would have always wondered what would’ve happened if I’d tried.”

Photograph courtesy of Berenice Para

I asked Bere what inspired her to start the gallery and she was kind enough to write up a bit about her past experience with art, her passion for it and, overall, how ArtEstilo came to be.

Art has always been a crucial part of my life, in one way or another. Since a very young age I was interested in Music, Literature and Art history. As I grew older I realized that many times, one work of Art leads you to the next. I found that mesmerizing and magical. One of my first strong experiences with Art occurred when I was sixteen, during a school trip to an Art exhibit at Mexico City’s Anthropology and History Museum. The National Gallery had lent part of its collection of Great Masters to that museum and they were showing them in Mexican soil for the first time. My breath was taken away by the sight of Rembrandt Van Rijn’s “Man in a turban”. When I looked in its eyes, I could feel the hairs on my arms standing up. It was electric. I was in the presence of beauty and I was contemplating the work of one of the greatest Artists in human history. It was like being able to somehow connect with a person who had lived hundreds of years before my time and it made me look at the world differently. I was overjoyed.

As years went by and I struggled to find something I was passionate about which would also enable me to make a living, it dawned on me that an Art gallery was the perfect way to not only fulfill my own desires and make my dreams come true, but it was also an ideal opportunity to provide local Artists with a space to make themselves visible and gain a following. Most of the Artists who show at San Miguel are foreigners, so I was really interested in the possibility of dealing only with Mexican Artists. Up to a few months ago I had a blog, ArtFashion (it’s still up on Blogger, but I’m currently not uploading new posts), through which I began realizing that my love for Art was even bigger than I thought. I suppose that blogging about Art was also a huge factor in my decision to open an Art gallery.

It’s so important to tell people about new Artists and show them new things! In this day and age most people are very numb to new and exciting forms of expression. We tend to think we have ‘seen it all’ or that ‘nothing new is going on’. There is a huge lack of wonder, so little room for surprise. I feel it’s crucial to remind people that as long as the world turns and humans inhabit it, there will always be something new to be surprised by. There is beauty even in the most unexpected places and Art is not trivial, it’s more than entertainment, because it is life itself. It’s what we feel, what we wish for and what we hope for, it expresses where we are as a group and also individually. All Artists are speaking not only for themselves through their work, but also for the rest of mankind.

This is just a snippet of the insight Berenice shared with me, for which I’m immensely grateful. If you want to connect with Bere you can find her on Facebook, Twitter and her current blog project Sickening Beauty.

My goal with this article, and I hope I’ve achieved it, was simply to stop and acknowledge art and to perhaps remind anyone reading who may have forgotten that there’s an entire world of art, artists and art enthusiasts out there. They’re devoting themselves wholly to the resurgence of art and they deserve, as everyone does deserve, credit and respect for their hard work. Thank you so much for reading!

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