Since age 19 I've held a marginal relationship with art people, artists, the art world as such. I've floated in and out of art circles, resisted inclusion in them. I've hovered at the outskirts.
What am I saying here.
Sometimes I think it takes a skewed vision of the world to create or understand art. This is in part truth, in part myth. It also takes discipline, networking ability, personality, and business acumen to succeed in art. Among these are few people of outstanding genius. Of course genius takes courage. There's a quote on a wall at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to this effect. Any artist of merit needs a lot of courage and perseverance. You've got to plug away, even in the face of extreme self-loathing, if you're ever going to get anywhere.
Right now, I'm going through a period of isolation from the art world, and I'm considering dumping it all together. Too many egos. It's just me. I can't deal with egos asserting themselves over me, insisting on their intellectual and creative prowess in every contorted facial expression. Really, it's okay. Don't worry. 'Cause I'll be fine, even when things appear tentative for long stretches of time. As long as I keep writing, I'm a fine peach cobbler.
Back on track. I won't go into all of the personalities, genteel, arrogant, congenial. This a blog post, and should be of limited duration.
What it all boils down to is this. In April I took a writing workshop. I'd been on a great roll in my Amsterdam writing group, churning out story lines. It was great. I felt stimulated. Then an editor of a literary journal joined our group. I met his approval at first, but then one day, I brought in something that I'd written very quickly, no revision, a roll. This is always a hit or miss process for me. When I'm feeling right, I can sit down, and write something quickly. Somehow it just all fits together. My first published piece was written in this way. But this editor dude didn't like what I'd written. He was very snide about the whole thing, and he burst my creative bubble in the process. I went into a long writing slump that I haven't quite recovered from.
So in April I took a workshop in Amsterdam. It was a painful experience. One girl dominated the group, chattering on and on. Incidentally, a friend of that editor.
I'm not sure if I'll ever be a writer because the two things I want for are discipline and courage, so perhaps it's time to pack it in, and get a job doing whatever.
Problem is, I'm not too good at doing whatever, either.
Cut to the chase. Where is this gal headed to here?
Okay, here's the skinny. I had to write a story for the workshop, and couldn't get it going. About nineteen years ago I met this artist named Jack Goldstein. I visited his studio. He showed me his lightening paintings. I really liked him as a person. He was nice to me. Then, fifteen years later, I found out that he'd hung himself three days before my 34th birthday. So I started writing a story about him. I wanted to capture the essence of what I knew of him, which wasn't the impression that some people were giving. He alienated a lot of people with his outbursts and drug abuse. I wrote what I could, and stayed as true to his memory as I could. Even the girl in the workshop who talked incessantly, and developed a dislike of me when I asked her to talk less, couldn't say anything against what I'd written. My writing was vindicated, but it didn't get me out of the dark writer's block pit.
Writing certainly takes stamina. It was an emotionally exhausting task writing about Jack. I tried learning what I could about him. I put myself into it, and I got scared in the process. It's hard to imagine now, but I really was haunted by him. Maybe that's what it takes. I started to think that I had an obligation to his memory to write something about him. It became too much. In the end I started to imagine that he was here with me, that I was communing with the dead. It was pushing me over the edge. For several years it stuck with me, his suicide. I was upset about it. I wondered why people left him where he was. Why is it that certain people get abandoned. The world seems so heartless. I also wanted to explore what it was that lead him to that point. I wanted to go back and save him, a common impulse. There've been people I've wanted to save at different periods, but Jack was dead, and it was too late.
When I think about the story writing process, and the distance I've put between myself, and "it," I start to realize that all of my complaining, irritation, negativity, is just a distraction from doing something worth while. What else is bitterness but a degeneration of thought. When you're creating, doing something with your mind, you're succeeding in moving away from whatever obsessive thoughts muddle and trip you up into the dark pit.
I suppose. It could be true. It can be a difficult balance not to tip too far over into another form of mental instability. I've also gotten emotional satisfaction from my writing. There are no rules here.
Emotionally wrenching, stimulating, rewarding, whatever results. It's still better than irritation. I've been wondering which project to devote myself to, because it's true that I've got choices. It's got to happen soon.
I decided to put the project aside, and I haven't touched it since. I'm not sure if there's a better, less emotionally exhausting way of working. Maybe that's why I often stop writing my stories. It always ends up going too deep, and I stop.
I read a book called Jack Goldstein and the Cal Arts Mafia. In it Jack mentioned a gallerist, and it was funny. He said, all she ever did was drink coffee. All day long, she sat back her office drinking coffee. He was talking about all of the time he put into working, and this gallerist sat there drinking coffee. Sip, pour, sip, pour, gulp. What a placid existence.
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