Recognizing Artistic Partners

Typically, when we think of the word “partner” most of us assume it refers to normative monogamous romantic structures. Some of us will have a slightly more expanded definition, that includes ENM/ polyam relationships. Regardless, most of us don’t assume  “partners” refers to folks engaged in artistic collaboration. Or that those forms of relationships could be just as meaningful as romantic partners. But of course, if you’re an artist living a creative life, it makes sense that you’d want intimate relationships with other artists. Artists tend to like artists. And there’s no reason why these relationships shouldn’t be taken seriously and developed with the same amount of care as romantic partnerships. After all, good pairings can have tremendously inspirational creative outcomes, the examples are endless: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Charles and Ray Eames, Marina Abramović and Ulay, Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, Annie Leibovitz, and Susan Sontag, and even Jean Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol to some extent. 

In the same way that most of us haven’t received good relationship (or sex) education, let alone ethically non-monogamous  (or queer) relationship education, most of us haven’t received guidance on creating or sustaining artistic partnerships. There seems to be just as much mysticism around artistic relationships as there is around polyamory, perhaps even more so. I believe that there are lots of unique circumstances that must be navigated in relationships between artists; similar to the way ENM presents a unique set of challenges ie. meeting metamours, managing jealousy, and navigating NRE with an existing partner. In artistic partnerships, difficult circumstances that cause conflict already spring to mind: fragile egos, artistic failures, creative blocks, intellectual differences, and the fracture of artistic collaborations! While there's certainly an ever-growing section of books on polyamory at Powell's, I have yet to find the section on artistic partnerships. I certainly don't see an app comparable to Feeld, Tinder, or Lex to go on artist dates. Where are the books talking about how to manage the relationship between your wife and your co-author?! Basically, I think it’s worth exploring how to establish successful artistic partnerships using ENM theory as a jumping-off point. 

One of the obvious challenges with discussing artistic relationships is establishing its validity in the first place. By normative monogamous standards, artistic relationships don’t really make sense; they don’t easily fall into one of the four typical relationship categories: family, romantic partner, friends, or coworkers. Those of us who make art, either for pleasure or for a living, understand the unique connection that occurs when we enter flow with another person, but this intimacy isn’t neatly classifiable either. The form of attraction we’re experiencing in artistic bonds often comprises a mix of romantic, sexual, aesthetic, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and sensual energy… while not necessarily being any of those forms of attraction individually. Even muse-artist relationships are hard for the general public to grasp. It's even harder to describe the intimacy two artists share when they create or inspire one another. All of these factors, I believe make it impossible to discuss artistic relationships from a monogamous lens. As a result, most of us don’t think to explore artistic relationships because we haven't really considered them a possibility or categorized them separately.

In my opinion, ENM opens the gate for us to establish frameworks and terminology for discussing artistic partnerships. Isn't compersion comparable to the joy you feel when your artistic partner has a breakthrough or makes something truly amazing? ENM theory helps us validate the need for prioritizing artistic partners in the first place. Right off the bat, there are a few necessary assumptions in ENM theory that are necessary to understanding artistic relationships. First, ENM allows us to have multiple pals. This is important since not all artistic relationships are exclusive nor are they primary or life partners. Secondly, ENM also teaches us that it's not possible to follow the normative relationship escalator with multiple pals at once. As a result, we understand that each relationship looks different, and agreements are defined to best meet the needs of everyone involved. Again, artistic relationships don't make sense if we try to standardize them into a normative relationship model, they need the freedom to be defined by the needs of those within the relationship. Third, ENM (along with the queer and asexual community) teaches us that not all pals are romantic or sexual. We know better than to assume romantic partners are automatically the most important since that doesn't reflect many of our experiences. So having important intellectual partners makes sense. And lastly, ENM helps to break down the neat relationship classification boxes. Many of us are used to seeing or having unusual relationship configurations and aren't as stuck on normative roles:  platonic nesting partners, co-parenting with metamours, egalitarian triads, kink/play partners, etc. So the blurring of intimacy and roles in artistic relationships doesn't seem as shocking.  

Part of my interest in the topic of “artistic relationship education” is that it expands beyond the typically romantic/sexual dynamics of polyamory, but also overlaps in many aspects. Honestly, I haven’t heard people talk about this before. At its core, for me, the desire to explore artistic relationships is to learn tools to be more intentional in their formation and maintenance. In the same way that cheating didn't prepare me very well for ethical non-monogamy, art school didn't prepare me very well for artistic relationships. As I wrap up the year-long polyamory course, I'm interested in shifting my sights slightly to focus on this topic. I think creative relationships are just as ripe for exploration as ENM but currently aren't as easily accessible.