Asking
questions can be enlightening and dangerous. The small questions—what should I
do today? (Which is of course only meaningful if you actually have a choice and
as such is a privileged question to ask…) What should I—make, draw, paint,
write—next? hinge on the larger questions why and how? For me, especially after
completing a big project and before starting the next as yet intangible and at
times seemingly impossible thing, this demanding and unsettling question of why
always arises like a gate at a castle door. (Once I’m fully engaged in a
project and the project takes on a driving life force of it’s own, the question
fades away to a faint echo…but in between, it becomes a grinding dissonant
shriek that demands attention.)
Why make
another drawing? Why paint another painting? Why write another story? Aren’t
there enough drawings, paintings, stories in the world? Just walk into any
bookstore and ask yourself if there’s a shortage of books on their shelves…
Now our current
culture seems to think the motivation to “express yourself” is a valid and just
answer to the question of why, but to me, there’s always been a hollow ring to
it. It’s works on the assumption that people really care about what you have to
say. Which isn’t really true. And then there’s the justification given that the
purpose of making art is to change the world, to help improve the lives of
others. And I’m sorry, but I have to say that rings equally false (to me) in
its suggestion of grand self-importance.
Which
leaves the conundrum, if not to “express myself” or save the world, why spend
the vast amount of time, this large proportion of my days, doing it? This writing
stories, incessantly trying to make something out of nothing? And if it
actually doesn’t matter, if there’s actually no good reason, then why is it so
bloody hard, excruciatingly hard, not to? (John Barth hit this pretty much on
the nose saying, “It’s Scheherazade’s terror: the terror that comes from the
literal or metaphorical equating of telling stories with living, with life
itself. I understand that metaphor to the marrow of my bones.”)
I have
talked about this quite a bit in the past and found some pretty good answers
given in a blog post from November 2013, The Landscape of Questioning and yet these questions continue to come up for me. Per my usual method of
waiting out the storm of questions, I‘ve been busying myself weaving brightly
colored sari ribbon, reading poems and spending time journaling—a combination
of writing, sketching, doodling, making lists. And spending time with a couple
of “study guides”…
A couple
weeks ago, after touring the Keith Haring show at the DeYoung Museum (who in
his short life did make art to both express himself and to change the world and
was highly and prolifically successful at both…) I stopped in the bookstore and
a small book on one of the tables all but jumped into my hand. ART AND FEAR
Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of ARTMAKING by David Bayles and Ted
Orland. I opened it up, started reading and was astounded to the point of tears
at how uncannily it spoke to the questions and issues that I’ve been struggling
with. I bought it, brought it home and it’s since become a kind of map, a guide
on some ways to forge new paths in the landscape of making. They start out
talking about the nature of the problem~
And as
much as your family and friends are kind and supportive, as much as they love you, it still remains as true for them as for the
rest of the world: learning to make your work is not their problem.
Yes, it’s
this uncertainty that niggles at me. But maybe that’s part of the reason, the
answer, too? Then there’s this:
Making art provides uncomfortably
accurate feedback about the gap between what you intended to do, and what you
did. In fact, if artmaking did not tell you (the maker) so enormously much
about yourself, then making art that matters to you would be impossible. To all
viewers but yourself, what matters is the product: the finished artwork. To
you, and you alone, what matters is the process: the experience of shaping that
artwork…Your job is to learn to work on your work…you learn how to make you
work by making your work…
So it
seems perhaps the answer to why and how lives somewhere in the work itself? And
accepting the uncertainty, learning to straddle it and get on with doing the
work, writing the stories, drawing the drawings, painting that canvas is at
least part of the remedy to the malaise.
More
answers/solutions/remedies are presented with humor, whimsy and wit in another
map/guide I’ve been using—Lynda Barry’s Syllabus, the best get-over-your-self
and-your-stupid-inhabitations-and-hang-ups guide I’ve ever come across. But
enough on the topic for this week. Maybe I’ll delve into the weird and
wonderful world of Lynda Barry next time…
Until
then,
Take
Good Care,
Sharry
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