Maison,

I’m sorry for the unmanifested dreams and visions, and the suffering you have from seeing the potential crumble. It can be painful to say to least, especially for artists. I am impressed by your passion. A few things came to heart as I read your words.

The way I see art, it is not about us… its about creativity and energy colliding, connecting with a medium, and through that connection revealing some piece of magic, an aspect of nature. If your creativity is anything like mine, there are probably hundreds of inspirations that float through your vision. If we consider manifesting those visions as the source of our joy, then we miss out on the 99% that remain ephemeral. Said differently, if we attach to the manifested art as the source of our joy, then we only get a few breaths of happiness. If we can accept that the inspiration itself is a gift and a joy, then we can remain joyous no matter what.

The benefit of approaching our artistry in such a way is it makes us resilliant to becoming big-headed when we get praise (which chokes our connection to inspiration ) as well as the aggravation that can arise when our art is unappreciated. For instance, in your situation, you were given the gift of a vision of a movie, and because it did not manifest, you suffer. If you could accept the vision itself as the gift, the joy, and open to it with gratitude instead of ego and “they failed me” then you could be content that you did your part as well as you could have and move on. This frees your mind to jump into another creation without looking back.

This is what I do with my words to people online. I breathe in, digest the vision of their words, then breathe out from the heart my best artistry (capturing healing energy into words). Then I move on, find a new horizon, a new brother or sister in need and do it again. If I lamented every failed attempt, or celebrated each success, the actual flow of my energy would decrease. For me, the healing is the purpose, the actual words that come out are never exactly the same as the vision, words are too clunky…. but its not about me, its about my heart meeting up with each moment as clearly as it can. Similarly, I bet your heart sings in tune with the message behind your art, which is why you can flip between mediums so easily. However, in this case your medium was the group, and you flubbed it. You tried to paint a canvas that had its own agenda, its own texture, and the result is exactly what you put into it. This doesn’t mean that people can’t be trusted, it means that you chose partners that did not share your vision or passion. That’s not their fault, they were just being themselves.

Also, consider that arts beauty arises not within the art itself… the art is just a lump of stone, pigments on canvas and so on. Rather, the beauty is in the connection it forms with the audience, and the thoughts and emotions it brings forward in their body.

Namaste, friend, may you find love, light and limitless inspiration.

With warmth,
Matt

As a fellow artist I understand not perfecting something and how it makes us feel; almost as if we’ve failed; but from the way you explain the situation I have to agree it sounds like you wanted to “dictate” rather than collaborate. If there was a problem with the guy who was filming, then that should have been nipped in the bud, from day 1. I don’t necessarily feel like you couldn’t trust him; obviously you had some trust in him when you asked him to film it? Art causes us to take a step back and look at the problem to figure out what we can do differently. This is a great time to evaluate what happened, make some changes and start over. Even if you created it and you documented it; if you aren’t “really there” to make sure it’s done the way you want it or you aren’t expressing your vision completely, the others won’t know what you want.

Everything is a learning experience and you can’t expect to have something perfect when you (or them) are doing it for the first time. It takes practice. Even though he told you that he could be trusted to film it; it seems like there was a problem in his ability to do that (he could have actually been very nervous)

Now, networking with contacts is where you should start. Reach out to other filmmakers, other writers or other people in the business that can refer you to others. All it takes is to reach out on a social network or a local event and say, “hey – I have an idea, I wrote a piece and I want to express it through a film; Do you know where I can start?” There’s always other film competitions and you can use what happened previously to make the experience better.