Stepping Back for a Better View
what happened when I followed the art advice I gave my daughter almost fifteen years ago
Dear Reader,
Even now I can see my daughter, age eight1, hunched over and hard at work painting her landscape. I remember the vibrant colors she chose and the regal deer standing in the meadow. It was the animal that spurred on her frustration that day as she tried to get the proportions just right, growing more agitated with every swipe of the eraser.
I remember telling her: Step back from it and try to see the deer as part of the whole picture. Typically she didn’t absorb advice in the heat of a frustrated art moment but that day she did. By shifting her perspective to see the animal as one part of the larger scene she found her eye moved a little less critically over the proportions of the deer.2
This story kept playing in my mind over these past few weeks as I worked on the set pieces for our class theater production. I had to give myself that same advice again and again.
Aimee, the shade of those swirls on this box doesn't quite match the shade of the swirls on that other box but step back and you’ll see that it won’t be obvious from the audience.
Aimee, those words don’t line up from one flat to the next flat but step back and look at the overall effect, you’ll see a medieval door set against some book pages rather than the minor misalignment of words.
As we developed the various elements of the show, from sets to music to the artwork for the screen projections, stepping back also allowed me to see if the individual elements were working together to tell the story.
The advice to step back was helpful in more areas of the process than just the technical elements of the show.
As the kids worked hard to memorize the last few scenes of our play, I was able to step back and see that their performance would still be a success even if they missed a few lines. In the last few rehearsals, helpful moms sat in the audience and offered their suggestions. Yet I knew it was time to solidify the performances they’d worked so hard to perfect rather than continue to give these inexperienced students more notes about what to improve.
Stepping back allowed me to see how far we’d come and what we had rather than what we didn’t have.
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The ability to zoom out was dependent on having a vision for the show greater than all of the individual parts.
From pretty early on I was aware that I was the only one who carried the vision for the show in my head. I knew the parents and the women on the tutorial board couldn’t see where we were going and they were blindly putting trust in me during the school year. The students, new to the process of a theater production, weren’t able to see beyond the classroom walls where we rehearsed. As I gave direction to my husband about the music or my daughter3 on her artwork for the show, I knew that ultimately it was my responsibility to keep the vision and lead all of us in that direction.
If I’m honest it was a pretty terrifying place to be in, carrying the torch, hoping I was taking all of us in the right direction and not right off a cliff.
I questioned every choice I made: did I pick the right play, did I cast the show the right way, was it a bad idea to move the performance to a different venue? And yet certain ideas lingered and weren’t easily washed away by worry over cost or inconvenience. I began to listen to the ideas that stuck their landing. All year I’d been learning that courage is not the absence of fear and along those lines I also learned that trusting yourself is not the absence of doubting yourself.
Over and over again I had to lean in and trust myself as I made design decisions and directed rehearsals, even though I wouldn’t know how the choices turned out until the night of the performance.
Last summer when I was considering taking this teaching job I wrote in my five-year journal, “I remember when I was teaching theater years ago and I thought to myself, ‘I am more of who God made me to be when I’m teaching theater.’”
I found that to be just as true this year, which helped me believe in myself and my ideas even as my stomach churned before every rehearsal.
As I said in a previous newsletter:
What if I trust that we’re telling the story we’re meant to tell, the way we’re meant to tell it? What if I trust that the ideas I have are part of my voice as a teacher and a director?
And yet if I’m being honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what we had when opening night arrived and the audience settled into their seats.
It turns out that our tapestry of:
A Good Story +
Hard-working Student Actors +
Painted Art Projections +
Painted Set Pieces +
A Warm Audience of Family and Friends
Plus Learning to Trust Yourself =
A Beautiful Night for All!
Have you ever tried stepping back to see your art, or even a life situation, from a different perspective?
Continue the Journey
A few other illustrations created by my oldest daughter for the show:
I’m so thankful that I’ve written about this creative journey along the way and I’m able to go back and retrace my steps. In case you’re interested, here are some other related posts.
Blessings from the Guest Nest,
Aimee
P.S.—Thanks so much for reading! You can support the writing and art I share each week by donating to my art supply fund.
That daughter is graduating from college this weekend.
The truth is that her proportions were great and certainly better than I could do even today!
A different daughter than the one who drew the deer when she was eight.
Step back to see!!
Aimee - this is a wonderful reflection on your year of leaning in with courage and curiosity, becoming more of who God made you to be. What a gift you have given these young people in your work together. And that you have given your readers here in the ways that you've brought us into the journey. It truly is Good and Beautiful.