Wanna Dance?

The two-step with Beelzebub.

When I was an undergraduate art student, we were required to defend our current work before a panel of three or four faculty members. The format was deliberately pressurized: we had exactly 10 minutes to hang our work in the school’s gallery, then we’d sit in silence for five minutes while the panel studied what we’d made and formulated their questions. After that, we’d join them to discuss our ideas, field their inquiries, and endure their commentary.

The day I presented, the panel included two or three faculty from our college and a visiting artist from Germany. They all had impressive careers and even more impressive work—the kind that made you both inspired and a little intimidated. I remember one comment in particular, delivered by a painter of enormous abstract canvases who was represented by one of the most important galleries in the Los Angeles metro area.

“Chris,” he said, “I think you need to dance with the devil.”

The comment hit hard and there was a little back and forth between the faculty about whether I should follow his advice, but in the end, they all nodded in agreement. I didn’t quite know what to make of it.

If I’m honest, it took me years to understand. Maybe I was subconsciously trying to ignore it—after all, who wants to hear that their work is playing it safe? But eventually, the aha moment arrived. I think he was suggesting that I take greater risks. That I go beyond what I imagined was possible or acceptable. That I fully commit, even if it might take me over some imaginary safe line. To run right up to that line and maybe even cross it.

I’m sharing this story now because I’m starting a new sketchbook, and these two things—that critique from years ago and this fresh Moleskine—have come together.

I sometimes assign myself a set of restrictions or rules for a new sketchbook. It’s a way of giving the book purpose, of making it more than just a repository for idle doodles. This new one will have as its guiding principle: dance with the devil.

I’m committing to take the drawings more seriously. To make the time spent in these pages more adventurous, more intense, more something. To make it extraordinary. This book will lay aside the “practice” approach—that’s reserved for a companion tome I’ll fill at the same time. This one gets a name: Lucifer’s Dance Card.

“Wanna dance?” asks my new sketchbook.

It’s a commitment. A reminder every time I open it’s pages that I’m not here to play it safe. I’m here to press a little harder, risk a little more, and see where it takes me.

Do you do this? Assign a reason or set of rules when you crack open that clean new sketchbook?

Try it. You might be surprised who shows up to dance.