a shape

 

Dear Working to Refine & Define,

I am trying, working, I guess, to find a 'poignant' shape.  This is a thing that concerns me deeply- perhaps all artists are looking for a poignant shape.  I want an emotional shape that is not defined already.  Not a heart or a butterfly, or a hand.  I want a shape that feels like something, but is not something.  A shape with fullness, and flourish, or a shape with weight and sadness.  Or a shape that evokes the moonlight.  Or satisfaction.  It should be rounded, some, I think, and maybe a bit awkward in proportion.  I often end up with something kind of mounded.  A half oval.  But, I have to be careful not to end up with something too human breast like.  Similarly, it can't be too much of a lemon or a pear or an apple.  It can't look too much like a mushroom.  Blobby, yes, but kind of symmetrical, I think, is what I want.  It should be like a view of the sublime, this shape- an awing feel.  Maybe bodypart-ish, but not specific.  Biological looking.

I once used a shape that was a cross between a wire whisk and a light bulb.  I used it enough in graduate school that an artist visiting my studio asked me what it was.  I said I didn't know; just a shape.  This fellow, then, warned me of the danger of using shapes without knowing what they were or where they came from. 

Curious, isn't it?  A warning like that?  Was it that the gods would be angry that I used a thing that came from the unconscious?  He went on to tell me that he had a shape like that, and he used it for years, until he recognized it as something in his studio- perhaps a light bulb?- and then he stopped using it immediately.  

Now, I wish, like a wish sandwich, that I could tell you what that all meant.  What lesson there was in his warning me about using shapes without... permission?  Full knowledge?  Clinical trials?  I do not know.  I know one thing, that if you are going to warn a person, you might take some care, do a little background check, because I think if you warn a person not to go over a certain fence, not to cross a line, they are not likely to obey if they aren't afraid of the undefined monster you say lives on the other side of the fence.

Writer, indeed!

 

Untitled (Never Perfect Enough), Barbara Kruger, 2020.

Dear Writers,

Another little incident around the extended family table, another little day of hashing out what the hell all that could have meant.  

One thing I know, is that I was offended at the notion of not being noticed as a writer.  What, is there a minimum page requirement?  Psh.  Are people using words without a publisher exempt from this action, then, of putting down words on to a screen or page?  These ones are 'not-writers?'  Psh.

I guess what I am saying here, and I invite you to rise up with me and claim your place as a writer, is that I WRITE, therefore, I AM (A) WRITER.

PS

I know, it's pretty forceful, but, I am pretty sure that I have already pleaded with, permitted you, to claim your place as artist, and I believe that the saying it is what makes it true, not anything else really.  Let me try to give you an example...  How many words in a language constitute knowing how to speak it?  How many times do you need to pedal around your block before you are a bicycle rider?  How many hours do you need to play guitar to be a musician?  Of course I am aware of the fine points, of the tens of hours a week practicing, of the notion of some-  I know some Spanish, un poquito.  I play a few chords.  Et cetera.  If it makes you feel more confident, you can add the some:  I am a sometimes artist.  I do some writing.  I can live with that; but I cannot live with arbitrary gate-making and -keeping, or the false notion that unless you make money at it, you are not it.  The difference between you singing in your car and the singer in the band is that you are not in a band currently.  Period.

Permesso.

Dear End of July,

A bit of writing for you, today, if you feel like reading.  See, it's not just the topics, it's not just the facts, it's the telling and sharing of the space.  It's the hearing of it.  An artist once talked to me about 'permission.'  I didn't really have a clue what she meant by it then, but I kept it, I kept it as a question.  What could it mean?  Why would I need permission?  I didn't think I did need it.  Some days you don't. 

For the other days, you want an essay like this one from Dave Hickey.  He'll give you permission and plenty of it, and even a little salute as you go in through the out door.

 Press here to link to the Paris Review.