A Surreal Setting for Self-Help

“Hi, my name is Alice, and I’m an artist.”

Had I finally found my peer group? That was the question in my mind as I attended my first meeting of Artists Anonymous, a real group in this life that is stranger than satire. The name may sound unnecessary since 99% of the world’s artists are anonymous. But they couldn’t call it Artists, Alas, Anonymous.

The meeting began like other self-help groups with introductions:

“Hi, my name is Jim, and I’m a musician--this week. . . .”

“My name is Celeste, and I do multimedia. . . .”

“Hi, I’m Mary, and I’m a doll maker. . . .”

It wasn’t exactly what I expected. It never exactly is.

What it was was exactly 30 men and women sitting in a circle in a park clubhouse. Average age: I guess 37. Average outfit: gray corduroy slacks, powder-blue turtleneck, maroon zipper jacket. Worn-jogging-shoes-to-sandals ratio: 5 to 1. One green-haired woman. One black cape.

Although no rule was actually read against divulging what went on at the meeting, I assume there is one. But hey, I can do what I want. I’m an artist. I break all the rules.

Actually, I have no intention of telling specifically what went on at the meeting. After all, what care you, impatient reader, that Joan began her assemblage that very afternoon? All I can do is tell you why I was there and what my being there means for humanity.

The answers are (1) loneliness and (2) hill of beans, respectively.

What was interesting about this anonymous meeting is that, unlike most groups built around overcoming a compulsion, this one seemed to be designed to help people support their art habit. No one got up and said to wild applause, “Hi, I’m Salvador, and I have been clean and surrealism-free for one year.”

Instead, people talked about the torments that stand in the way of the creative process. These include everything from Society to mental blocks to diverting bad habits like drugs and alcohol. Instead of the usual moving story from the speaker about her personal struggle, the speaker at this meeting read from as fine a short story as I’ve ever heard.

So what you had was part therapy, part reading, part support group, part dating bar, part networking opportunity and an incredible place to learn about the latest Matisse show or minimalist music fest.

But had I found my peer group? I am in this strange position of actually getting paid to do creative work. This sounds swell until you consider that it must be done in the confines of a newspaper, meaning it must not be too weird, too dirty, too ethnic, too anything. And they want good, yet.

So, as I listened to people tell tales of trying to get started as an artist, the breakthrough-by-50-or-bust set, I felt odd. It’s my job to lay out my soul for people to line garbage cans with; yet I felt intimidated talking at a meeting.

I’m cursed and blessed with congenital contrariness. If I am at a boring party--say, a group of academics--I find it pretty easy to be the life of the party. But here I was in a group of uniquely expressive people, and I could hardly say a word.

I was reminded of my childhood fantasy--to be deeply in the world and yet totally peripheral to it. I wanted to be Tinker Bell. I wanted to be this tiny little invisible fairy who could flit about the universe and see everything, yet go unnoticed.

Hi, my name is Tink, and I’m an artist.