“Soo...What are you doing?”

I understand that the “What are you doing?” question comes from a place of interest, curiosity, or maybe it’s just small talk but I’ve realized that most people - more specifically, artists - freeze up when we hear this damn question. It’s not because we wait around, or do nothing all day. It’s because we have to do a mental scan of all the things we have done and share what we think YOU might think is a worthy product of “productivity”. “Oh well I just wrapped up this show”, “Starting this project”, “Callbacks for this thing that’s like really cool” and whatever… And while those answers may VERY WELL be true, sometimes that’s not always the case.

After one of my Grotowski training sessions I went to lunch with a few classmates. One of them sparked a 2 hour conversation by asking “What has been inspiring you?” I noticed that she definitely wanted to avoid “What have you been doing?” which we ALL appreciated. “What has been inspiring you?” is a liberating question to be asked. We are inspired everyday, that can be through a double catering shift, catching up with family, a walk through Prospect Park - it can ALSO be that script we are working on, that callback we have been preparing for, and that role we are doing research on. The “artistic” stuff is bound to pop up because everything is the work.

What I admire about the question is that it focuses more on experience rather than product. I believe experience is much more valuable and interesting than product. So throw an artist off guard and make their day, ask them: What has been inspiring you?