it is 9 o'clock on a thursday and i am taking my first break of the day so i don't feel too bad about writing at work. something about penning on company time today ain't settling well so the least i can do is keep it to the time they give me for myself. - i hate that sentence - even if it is only on the principles of the affront of logic that time provides and the idea that my company gives me any of it. but alas, i am going to try and let it go for now.
yesterday, as i read an interview given by Bill Mallonee to Paste Magazine, it struck me how cathartic the creative process is for some people. As it is for me. while i truly think there are times that i can write or create for a purpose other than my own healing or understanding, very rarely is it so. even when i was writing papers for school i would toil under the assumption that at the end i would have a greater grasp of the concept once i had written and edited the work. and hopefully a better understanding of myself.
fascinatingly enough, whether creating for catharsis or not, healing can come through art. i recall going to the dallas art museum when the Renoir expo came through, it was great. i have seen some van goghs, some classics, i have been around the modernists, brilliance, and unknowns. all worthwhile - i got something from each of them and i hope in some small way, i hope that through my observation of their work or through my reading of their book or viewing of their ballet they experienced some amount of healing. i don't know if that's what happened but i can dream.
i know it's a weird thought that i would give something to an artist a thousand miles away or long since dead but think of healing. it is something miraculous. it doesn't know about time or distance. healing doesn't play by the rules of physics or chemistry, i mean it can when it wants to but it doesn't have to. so maybe when someone hangs their heart out there in a painting or sculpture or photograph and we take it in and breath a sigh of relief because our picture of the world has grown - maybe with that deeper breath a little bit of healing has become part of the healing that happened in the heart of the creator.
i often think of Van Gogh. i think we are kindred spirits, i know big boots to fill. i don't say it to claim genius or even to claim dementia, and not even really to claim brokenness. i just know when i look into the greens, blues and yellows i know the man. and there's the riddle. with cats like me and van gogh we need people like us, we need folks who are a little crazy, we need a little competition, a little deep end, some danger, a little death, a whole lotta life, a whole lotta grace, we need a whole lot of blood so when we can't find it right away we do the best we can. he painted pictures - i write. why dig so deep and go to those strange places with weird colours and lines that turn into landscapes - mainly because we need someone to talk to, we need healing. and when you can't find it outward you go inward and when you can't find it inward you go outward. art is the symbiosis of the two. out and in combined.
so as it is with all artists - we cast our lines. again and again and again. glory, hope, repetition. it comes down to witch line gets the strike, will it be the one where we run off and allow our mind to tangent and we dismember an earlobe, employ a shotgun, paint a masterpiece, stay in bed, or be run of the mill normal? which line do we cast more of? we control what we do, but as we with paint brushes, pens and cameras know glory is, more often than not, found if the line cast most often is the line with common thread. however, this is not to say that the simple things are not beautiful or full of glory - what i am saying is that those whose souls are predispositioned with a desire for something other than finding pleasure in simplicity will often find difficulty in finding glory there, but these same people often want to find pleasure in the simple things in the most desirable ways. think of the most poignant paintings by van gogh or books by dostoyevsky - they are about the common life but these were not common men, they were brilliant, tormented artists, but they found their grace and healing in telling the common story. not living the common story but telling it.
so here is the catharsis of art and its beauty. i think van gogh made his paintings for so many groups of people - for everyone and for himself - for no one, every critical interpretation coupled be applied. briefly, for the common man, he sees the labour in the fields of farmers or still lives of flowers or of unique colours and shapes - the common man is elevated because of his experience of van gogh. the artist experiences van gogh and knows the struggle of the artist, the torment of his disease and the rot of his brain. the potential of his life ended by the gravity of genius and the onslaught of what may have been a cruel ironic death via lead poisoning - artists marvel at a grand story like this - elevation. van gogh paints for himself, carrying his mind from place to place, holding himself steady, trusting the brush and the paint, the colour and shape - catharsis - van gogh is elevated. and if we want to be very critical we could art for art sake it and talk about how the paintings elevated the medium of painting itself. the point is art has meaning and for me the meaning is cathartic.
i write to heal myself. if others get lucky and patch things together through what i write that is wonderful but that's not the purpose, while i certainly could purpose myself to that end, very rarely do i set out to write for something, or to create something beautiful. i hang it out there, i take the shot. over and over and over. if my voice is recognized by someone other than myself that is fantastic but i don't plan on it, i don't expect to make a living at this, although i may, who knows, other idiots have been luckier. i figure writing in the blog is a bit like talking to myself, i always have an open audience, and a willing party to reply. i push it pulls, like talking in the mirror except instead of seeing myself i - well i suppose i see myself - i hear myself - but not me, pieces of me, packaged up into something i can interact with.
part two. what happens if nothing is exposed. if it is only me it is only a journal. which doesn't get it done. same as van gogh or beethoven or sellers. a journal doesn't get the cathartic aspect, it is too enclosed, not exposed enough, there has to be exposure, people have to feed it. there has to be interaction. if it gives nothing it can take nothing and thus can give nothing. so if no one gets the chance to read my healing may not be as complete as it could be so i hang it out there to the wind, allow what may. same with painting ala Van Gogh. if he bottled them up and hid them away there wouldn't be anything given to him from other's through them, the medium becomes the doorway. it is all very confusing in words but not in mind. think of it, how it operates, how you pass yourself to the artist through the work and it will make more sense.
art is the symbiosis of the artist, the observer, and the medium - all separate yet all at once becoming one. we are all the artist, the observer, and the medium to some degree or another. a farmer and his corn is just as vital as mozart and his harpsichord. you and yours counts and i want you to know that. you are vital! if you are gone a little bit goes away and the tapestry will change. it is altered forever and, this is very important so follow closely, whether our contributions are judged minor or major they are still made and thus if they are gone things are different and thus infinitely so.
take heart all you beggars, as we have the same heart. artists, drunkards, crazies, and children, old people and the lame - we all may be different but we all still matter. it seems fleeting, this brief moment of clarity, like i am watching myself flying through a dream. i know it will end. i will return to earth in all its reds and greys. gone will be the thousand yellows van gogh used to paint the day, but they will be here. always when i need them, hopefully healing me and hopefully healing you.
as quickly as i am there i am gone.
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