Martha Graham and the "Blessed Unrest"

No Artist Is Pleased"That seems like the kind of thoughts that lead to heavy drinking and permanent despair. Or maybe it’s just a matter of how you look at things. I read “No artist is pleased” and I start thinking words like failure, discouraged, dismayed. But I’m not sure that’s what Graham meant; or, maybe more important, I’m not sure that’s the way we should take it. We don’t live in a black-and-white world: saying you aren’t happy doesn’t logically mean that you are sad. There are many, many, many emotions on the spectrum to get a person from one end to the other. Graham goes on to call this a “blessed unrest.” -- a reporting from the Missouri Review.