insurgent49
  updated weekly
 home - contribute - donate -  message board - events - links - contact us - archive
February 9, 2007
The Tao of Waitressing
by Lindsay Luckey, insurgent49

     Perhaps it’s a naïve notion, but I think most people can do most things, if they’re given the proper time, training and/or motivation.

     I also think that most people don’t like doing things they aren’t immediately good at for very long.  If you don’t immediately “get” math, then being forced to do it every day for thirteen years of school is enough to create deep seeded ill will.  The same theory applies if you’re not interested in all things physical, but are forced to scurry around dodging rubber balls thrown your way by people who live for the opportunity, or if your attempt in art class looks like an attempt by the kids you’re old enough to baby-sit (especially when little Mr. or Miss Naturally Talented sits next to you).

     It’s more preferable to shun the evil unattainable skill than to continue being made a fool by those who are inherently good at it. 

     I can’t do math, I hate sports and art is dumb respectively. 

     I find it particularly interesting when people talented in one or many ways say, “I could never do that…”.  I think one of the more intimidating and seemingly exclusive groups like this may be that of the “artist”.  While walking through Town Square a few weeks ago, my friend and I caught the artists carving ice sculptures.  We watched mesmerized when, from a huge block of frozen water being mangled by a not so dainty chainsaw, the beginnings of an underwater scene emerged.  What an awkward tool and difficult medium and stunning result. 

     How is he doing that?

     Does anyone remember the movie Groundhog Day?  Our old friend Bill Murray starts the movie a cocky, self-absorbed, news reporter sent to cover Groundhog Day in some podunk town.  Through the magic of film, he finds himself trapped reliving the same day over and over again.  At first he’s confused, then utterly depressed and then realizes that with endless time, he can put his time to good use, in this case figuring out how to impress the lovely Andie McDowell.  So he becomes a Good Samaritan, learns how to play the piano and does a beautiful ice sculpture of the object of his affection.  So if a fictional character can do it in a movie where time is no object, then can’t we all?  

     We probably could … even though we won’t.  It’s that time, training and motivation issue.  Creating art is seen as a luxury.  If public school budgets are any indication, hard sciences and sports inevitably win any kind of battle with the arts.  So then the majority of Americans have had less practice time with musical instruments and paints and ceramics and charcoal and chainsaw and so forth.

     I think we’re most comfortable with photography.  Digital cameras have taken a lot of the previously necessary training out of the art, allowing most of us to take pretty decent pictures.  And when looking at professional or artistic photographs we sometimes think, “What’s the big deal? Even I could that.”  A kind of democratization of the medium.

     I had a great art teacher in college who taught an entry-level art class for the biochemists, the historians, the engineers, the “everything but art” majors.  She showed us that we didn’t have to wear a beret and put our nose in the air and use expensive paints on a canvas held up by an easel to be “artists”.  Although it was uncomfortable, she made us go sketch in coffeeshops and use trash to complete our projects.  And most of te students, with a little instruction, time set aside to do it and the threat of not graduating, were able to create some pretty cool pieces and in the process found it relaxing, cathartic and fulfilling to create something. 

     So I guess my luxurious wish is that we spent more time and energy giving our kids the basics in art, the way we do in other fields, so that when they’re all grown up, and stressed out and don’t have a lot of free time, they’ll already have the skills to be artists. 







     Lindsay Luckey is a waitress and aspiring Renaissance woman. She lives and works in undisclosed locations in downtown Anchorage, and can be reached at lindsay@insurgent49.com.

     'The Tao of waitressing' appears on insurgent49.com every Friday.
- Columnists -

Editor's Desk
by Aaron Selbig

Rank and File
by Nova Stubbs

Red Alert
by Soren Wuerth

Alaskan In Exile
by Neil Zawicki

The
Bramble Bush
by Kevin Morford


The Tao
of Waitressing
by Lindsay Luckey







Copyright 2005 Insurgent Media. All Rights Reserved.
in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership.