The Marinating of Art

The creation of any type of art is much like the marinating of a steak. The famous mime Marcel Marceau was known to have told students that their new choreography was excellent and did not need to be changed. However, he would sometimes qualify, it needed to ‘marinate’ before it was ready for the stage. His feedback alludes to an excellent principle that is not only applicable to the arts but life overall. Rather than to simply meet deadlines, an approach that allows for greater excellence is to schedule completion of the creation of performance, literary or other art sufficiently in advance of the deadline or booking so that appropriate changes and revisions can be made. For example, a dancer will finalize choreography significantly sooner than the day when a new piece is presented. This is assuming that an artist is booked or engaged far enough in advance to allow for such planning. However, practice of this ideal may require an artist to turn down an invitation when a person would be rushed to prepare and there is not time for proper ‘marinating’. As the saying goes, ‘Failure to plan on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on mine.’ If we expect our art to be anointed we need to allow for God’s timeline and not expect him to bless our ‘cramming’. Even the most talented and gifted chefs can’t rush marinating without compromising. The question asked by many cooks, ‘How long does it take to marinate?’ will be answered in next week’s post.