Persistent Rhythm now open at West End Gallery
The writer must be four people:
1. The nut, the obsédé
2. The moron
3. The stylist
4. The critic
1 supplies the material; 2 lets it come out; 3 is taste; 4 is intelligence.
A great writer has all 4—but you can still be a good writer with only 1 and 2; they’re most important.
–Susan Sontag, from Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
I often come across words of advice for writers and those in other creative fields that I can easily apply to artists such as myself. I saw this bit above from writer Susan Sontag and it immediately hit for me as an artist.
I certainly have been the nut or the obsédé — the obsessed— with my work. For decades now it has preoccupied my thoughts and shaped my world. When I’m not painting, I am thinking about painting, often to the detriment of my interactions with others.
I have definitely been the moron. I let the work come out as it is and for some reason believe others will find some of the same things in it that I see. Then I willingly put it out into the world to be judged by people I seldom know with the hope they will allow me to make a living.
Just writing that makes me wonder how I have survived doing this for this many years. I must be nuts or stupid.
Or both.
Put a checkmark on those first two points from Sontag’s list.
Now as to the third and fourth points– the stylist and the critic– I am unsure. I believe my work is somewhat unique stylistically but I can’t say whether that translates as taste as Sontag might see it. I don’t know that an artist can talk about their own work objectively on something like that.
The same goes for the intelligence that Sontag attaches to the critic on her list. I don’t know that an artist can objectively judge their own work or know how others will see it or what they will think of it. I used to believe that I could but that serves as testimony to validate the second point.
I have already testified to being a moron so how would I know if I have the required intelligence to qualify in even the lowest levels of being a great painter?
But I do believe that by Sontag’s reckoning I at least qualify as a good painter. I hope to somehow qualify on those last two points but I can’t say and may never know for sure.
And I guess that will have to be okay so long as I get to keep doing what I do.
On that front, my current show, Persistent Rhythm, is now hanging at the West End Gallery. until August 29th. I hope you can come out and see it. I think it’s a very good show. I would like to say it’s a great one but that’s not for me to say. Besides, who would believe someone that might be both a nutjob and a moron?
And if you like the work, please make plans to attend the Gallery Talk on Saturday, August 10, beginning at 11 AM. I guarantee that you will be convinced that I fill out at least two of the points on Ms. Sontag’s list. It’ll be fun, too, and there is something for everyone. Maybe you leave with a painting that might be given away there? Or a headache– who knows?
Redtree Times 