During an interview for our podcast Conversations with Creative Minds, Guy Sanville, actor and artistic director at the Purple Rose Theatre, repeatedly used the I-word. No, he didn’t say idiot, which I mutter frequently in reference to myself. Guy chose the word industrious to describe his work habits and those of people who are successful regardless of their profession.

You just don’t hear the word industrious all that often, unless you’re watching a wildlife show about the nature of beavers. Though there’s nothing bad about it, industrious is not one of the top ten characteristics I’d like someone to use when describing me. Maybe that’s because I associate it with a faint hearted kind of praise, like having a solid attendance record. (Although, Woody Allen did say that 80% of success is just showing up.) Or maybe I simply equate industrious with the machine-like regimen of industry.

And yet, industrious is the word that Guy chose to describe his approach to the craft of acting. Which makes sense because the development of craft, the essential skills and techniques that are fundamental to all endeavors, does take work. A lot of it. But industrious doesn’t happen all willy-nilly. It demands a certain structure, a framework for accomplishment. Creating, whether it’s a character, a play or a new theory of the cosmos is work. But industrious, when applied to work you love, is not at all industrial. It’s rigorous not regimented. It’s structured but never static. It’s practiced repeatedly but is not mind-numbingly repetitious.

Industriousness and creativity are not mutually exclusive. They’re just different sides of the same coin. It’s that dynamic tension thing of apparent opposites coming together to produce work that lives instead of working at making a living.

Industrious people continually refine their craft. They are engaged in such a way that work is something more than working. In our commitment to craft, we catch an occasional glimpse of art; the ephemeral and transcendent feeling of being completely at ease in and one with the universe. It is the pursuit of this that informs and inspires the practice of craft.

As Guy reminded me, acting is about doing. Industrious people get things done without an industrial way of working. Hmm. Industrious is sounding better and better. Maybe I could strike stylish off my preferred characteristics list and replace it with industrious. I’ll always love clothes, but for now I want to get stuff done.

Jan

Guy Sanville on Creating Reality (video)