"Fields of Gold" 24'X36" oil painting by Steve Alpert
Think of your favorite performer, or your favorite athlete performing at their very best. When they’re at their peak, they are all one small step away from disaster. Nobody can stay at their peak indefinitely. Peak performance would not be peak performance without valleys. Peaks and valleys. High tide and low tide. We’ve recently experienced the pain of this in our collective economy. The peak was fun, but unsustainable. We’re down in the valley and now beginning to slog up the mountain again.
I love the statement of the great John Wooden, coach of many national championship basketball teams at UCLA in the 1960’s. Dating myself? Coach Wooden said, “We don’t get real high after big wins and we don’t get real low after losses.” All respect due to Coach Wooden, in his peak years he so happened to have collections of players that were simply phenomenal, but he was the grand master maestro who guided them to title after title with an even-handedness that is indeed rare. Wooden was steady at the tiller, for sure.
Take a look at the careers of various artist in their fields. Very few of them have peak production on a regular basis. For the most part, now you see ‘em and then you don’t. The athletes you see performing at their peak are always on the brink of disaster. The marathon runners who gear themselves to a particular race meticulously plan their training schedule six months in advance so they will peak on race day. Awesome concept. The real artists always come back. The comeback trail is well traveled.
As a working artist, now working in multiple mediums – oil paint, documentary production and now with a new stage play in development, I am experiencing a run up the mountain. The economy devastated my art sales more than a year ago, and I was knocked back, really thrown for a loss with no notion of what to do. In the coming posts I will detail a little more about the steps I have taken to resurrect myself, but clearly it has been a tough year and I am happy to kiss 2009 a big good-bye. SEE YA!
And of course, it’s all in nature. Plow a field every year and eventually you deplete the nutrients. Let it lie fallow, allow the elements have its’ way and, voilla, it is ready to support a robust new season. Amazing!
