serpentine: crafting a creative manifesto
on loïe fuller and building your own artistic framework
First things:
I'm so excited to offer a pay-what-you-wish online workshop for artists and writers on keeping a commonplace book.
The Art of the Commonplace Book: Gathering Wisdom to Deepen Your Craft
Sunday, December 10 at 2pm ET (7pm UK)
You can register here.
Born Mary-Louise Fuller in Chicago in 1862, Loïe Fuller began her career performing in Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows and on vaudeville stages. But she found success in Paris, where Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted her dancing at the Folies Bergère. She was best known for a dance of her own creation—the serpentine.
Fuller's serpentine was a skirt dance that depended upon yards of white silk into which she sewed rods so that she might create a swirling, sculptural performance. As she moved, her arms traced intricate patterns in the air. The fabric would coil and spiral around her. Colored lights washed over the silk, casting her in kaleidoscopic hues, a goddess of light and motion.
Loïe Fuller was heralded as a visionary performance artist, but she was an unlikely icon. From farm folk in Illinois, she had no formal dance training. By all accounts, offstage, she lacked any real grace. But under the lights, she was all ephemerality and liquid movement.
In a 1913 profile in Vogue, Fuller said of an early stage appearance in New York, "I had never had a dancing lesson in my life and yet I was expected to pirouette on my toes... I was a failure, and the public told me so." And still, she went on to create art so unique, she inspired the likes of Isadora Duncan, W.B. Yeats, and Auguste Rodin.
Dancing at the Folies Bergère, Loïe was a torrent of silk, waves on a cosmic ocean. They called her the Electric Fairy, the Priestess of Pure Fire. Her fabric billowed. She looked like a snake. She looked like a flame. Those who saw her perform described her using lines from the Book of Revelation: "She was clothed in the sun and stars." Loïe was a testament to transformation, to magic, to what is possible.
In Write til You Drop, Annie Dillard says, "The writer knows her field - what has been done, what could be done, the limits - the way a tennis player knows the court. And like that expert, she, too, plays the edges. That is where the exhilaration is. She hits up the line. In writing, she can push the edges. Beyond this limit, here, the reader must recoil. Reason balks, poetry snaps; some madness enters, or strain. Now gingerly, can she enlarge it, can she nudge the bounds? And enclose what wild power?"
I've been thinking of the serpentine path of a creative project, a creative life—its winding nature. Writing a book, to me, feels like trying to follow the course of an unpredictable river. I am slowly learning each project has its own compass—one the journeyer must craft for herself. For too long, I’ve had no guidance save quiet, internal impulse. Valuable, yes. But lately, in my writing, I find I'm looking for direction, creative edges of my own devising to push up against.
Last week, I read an article that described how, every day on the set of the feature film "All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt" director Raven Jackson and cinematographer Jomo Fray read aloud a 12-point manifesto to help everyone stay conscious of their ultimate goals as collaborators. These points include, "Remember water, remember wind," "The wound is where the light gets in — embody it in every frame," "Landscape as character," and "Embody a raw grace."
I think, too, of Some Rules for Students and Teachers, the list by Sister Corita Kent and popularized by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Rule 1: "Find a place you trust and try trusting it awhile." Rule 4: "Consider everything an experiment." 6: "Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail. There's only make."
To the viewer, Loïe Fuller appeared boundless in her billowing silk. But there was structure beneath. In the Vogue profile, Fuller said, "To be able to express—that is my sole aim. No system—just intuition and instinct, which have been made to bloom like the flowers in the full light of the sun."
No system, she says. And yet, under the flowing folds of her silk was a clearly defined form.
In a patent she applied for in 1893, Fuller describes in detail the specifications of the costuming that allows for the dance. She writes, "By this improved garment many poses and movements may be executed which it is impossible to execute with a garment of any other construction."
Fuller held other patents, too—ones for phosphorescent fabric, stage lighting designs, and chemical salts. In 1895, she submitted a patent for a "Theatrical Stage Mechanism for Producing Illusory Effects"—a mirror trick designed to make many performers appear in the place of one.
Loïe Fuller's art was a mixture of form and flow, combining structure and magic to bring about metamorphosis and innovation. She took her obsession with light and movement, gave it shape, and offered audiences something like transcendence.
Magical framework: I need this in my creative life right now, and maybe you do, too.
The term "manifesto" comes from the Latin "manifestum." Clear. I’m in the process of gathering clarity about what will guide me, crafting a personal compass, one that articulates my values as an artist, one that will act as a guidepost as I begin revisions on my book, a manifesto that will enable me to embody my creative promises to myself and to the questions I'm asking on the page.
A creative manifesto can serve as a structure that helps to hold the twisting nature of artistic work, a powerful statement of intent. It can help keep the vision close during long projects, maintain a shared approach between collaborators, and serve as a tool for self-reflection.
Some questions to consider when building a creative manifesto: What do I value in my art? What questions am I trying to stay close to? How do I wish to approach the work?
Here are a few points I'm playing with as I craft a manifesto for revising my book:
Let yourself obsess on the page.
Make this book full of darlings. As R.O. Kwon says, "If possible, all darlings."
The details of motherhood are art. Write them. Motherhood is a generative, creative force.
Stay present with the work. It's the only way through. Let it change you.
Let your research lift the memoir writing. Make it transcendent. More facts. More awe.
Creative companionships are relationships worthy of deep exploration.
Let historical detail, personal narrative, and dreams intertwine. Let them live in the same sentences.
Make each sentence sing.
As I continue to build my creative manifesto, I'll think of Loïe and how she knew intimately the elements she needed. She named them. She kept them close—colored electric lights, white silk, her body in motion—and then, she combined them to dazzling effect.
P.S. Do you use manifestos for your creative projects? I'd love to know. (I'm also daydreaming about my workshop offerings in 2024. Would a guided workshop on crafting your own creative manifesto be of interest? Let me know in the comments below!)
This was beautiful and inspiring and I am deeply excited about the workshop!
As I contemplate returning to my writing after an unexpected hiatus, I shall think about my manifesto. My creative drive is mostly about sharing my knowledge and concerns about food and food systems.