"Deep Thoughts": April 2008 Archives

I've been a little quiet here lately, I know. Partly it's because I have been busy like one of those ants you see scurrying so fast they can't even move in a straight line. But partly it's also because I'm having a lull in wanting to post. Or all the things I would say are simply very trivial - the same kinds of things that I always say.

It's not that I don't have thoughts anymore; it's just that I never have them in the right way or at the right time to want to post them. And maybe they are private thoughts.

And maybe spring is just a time of shifting, stirring the pot, watching the colors meld and change and alchemize into something entirely new. I don't really know.

It might be that like so many other bloggers, I am getting a little bored by the medium itself, or by the specific parameters of this one (not that I necessarily adhere to much of a theme, but it can still get stale). Or it may be that I am tired of talking here, in this space, in this particular way, and am simply taking the time out to just talk to my friends. I don't know. Again.

Boywich asked me recently if I had decided whether to keep Girlwich up or take it down. And the funny thing is, I hadn't even remembered mentioning that I was considering taking it down. I've been wanting to start some other things - pure photo blogs, or photo projects with small stories attached to them. And to some extent, keeping this one up interferes by taking up the little time I do have to devote to such things.

But I haven't quite decided what to do yet. I know at least one other blogger who's in the same kind of boat at the moment (or a related one; kayaks and canoes, as it were), and that makes me feel better.

It may just be a cycle of nature, to get tired of one's blog in the same way that one gets tired of one's room as a teenager and wants to redecorate.

I've had several conversations in the past few days having to do with art - whether it should stand on its own two feet or whether one ought to need context - historical background or a curatorial explanation - to understand it. I am of the former camp, but much of the art world (I am told by those in a position to know) is in the latter. And those who are in the business of art call my camp formalism and say it's something to rebel against, which is puzzling to me, given how restrictive the idea of needing a translator in order to approach a piece of creative work seems.

I have the urge to expand this dichotomy to life. I suppose because it sticks in my craw in some way, but also, maybe, because it seems to express two different larger viewpoints: the one that wants help making sense of something and the one that wants to figure it out for itself.

I suppose it is clear which one of these hypothetical views I fall into. I would like to think that I can respect either viewpoint, but I am not sure I am that magnanimous. Or am I? I truly do respect the beliefs of highly religious folk, not because I share them in any way (I don't) but because I can see and acknowledge and even admire how much strength and peace their faith gives them.

Okay, so there is one example. But on the other hand, I have been feeling contemptuous lately, and I won't go into the details, except to say that when someone else's lack of courage or spine directly affects me, I am not so forgiving about it.

And on the third hand, it is precisely those kinds of situations (ones that call for courage) that show us who we are, and if I am lucky enough to be a strong, brave person, perhaps I can just be proud of that and walk on, standing a little taller in my boots with that knowledge.

Then I happened upon this jewel of a series. And I remembered the crucial thing: that I am an artist, that I have always been an artist, and that when that part of me is walled off from my daily life, I suffocate and die. It happens bit by bit, so that it is hard to notice it happening.

Oh, it's not that I never do anything creative. But the work I get paid to do is not creative, and it's been a long time now, that I've been pecking away at it, trying not to notice how much I hate it.

I am usually able to ignore it by the pure expedient of not throwing too much time at it. I work in spurts, so that I have weeks where I don't do much of that sort of work, and then weeks where I work round the clock to make some money so I can ignore it for a few more weeks.

But that plan is not really working for me, and I've known that for a while. I just haven't known why or what to do about it. I am still not sure of the next step, exactly, but the larger answer is clear. I need to make art, and to make it for a living. Somehow.

Somehow I have to do that, even though everyone has told me, my entire life, that it is impossible.

So the thing that made my cry while watching this beautiful series was here was the lie. The people who have said that have been lying. Because here are tons of people making things, and making a living at it. And god, they all sound happy. They sound just like I sound when I am playing, only they are working. Why? Because my play is their work, and their play is their work. And that is all there is to that.

From where I am sitting now, it could take any one of a number of forms. There are the photographs, there is a novel, there are plenty of other things I like to make and play with, and some of them are quite saleable, I think. I just need to hop tracks. Maybe I will go take some pictures of trains, as Boywich suggested the other day - just to get in the mood.