Redtree Times

Little Gems Now at West End Gallery

Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art. The artist is the only one who knows the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice to be made, a selection of elements. It is a materialization, an incarnation of his inner world. Then he hopes to attract others into it, he hopes to impose this particular vision and share it with others. When the second stage is not reached, the brave artist continues, nevertheless. The few moments of communion with the world are worth the pain, for it is a world for others, an inheritance for others, a gift to others, in the end. When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.

We also write to heighten our own awareness of life, we write to lure and enchant and console others, we write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth, we write to expand our world, when we feel strangled, constricted, lonely. We write as the birds sing. As the primitive dance their rituals. If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write. Because our culture has no use for any of that. When I don’t write I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in prison. I feel I lose my fire, my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave. I call it breathing.

― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin

Why do it?

Even after nearly 30 years of doing what I do–which is paint, if you were still wondering– I still often find myself asking why I do this. There are certainly easier and more lucrative ways to make a living but they normally don’t offer the autonomy, solitude, and non-financial rewards that this life offers.

However, I don’t think it’s as simple as putting everything on a spreadsheet and comparing columns of pros and cons, of which there are plenty of both. I don’t think any single line item on such a spreadsheet would justify doing or not doing what I do. 

No, I think it’s something beyond quantification or even justification. It’s something that I know is there, and have known for some time, from a point in my life where I was yet to fully live this life. It’s something I often struggle to put into words. That’s probably why I often find a rationalization for what I do from writers who struggle with that same question. Though they are writing about the act of writing, their observations carry cross all creative disciplines. 

I have recently read two wonderful books that deal with this question. One, Art & Fear from David Bayles and Ted Orland, touches on it while dealing broadly with art and creativity while the other The Writing Life from Annie Dillard, gives deep insight into the essential part of the writing impulse which moves, as I said above, across the creative spectrum. Annie Dillard’s book, by the way, was a gift from the Great Veiled Bear this past Christmas and ranks as one of my favorite gifts and reads in a long, long time.

It scratched my itch. 

Reading it right after Art & Fear came at a time when I was truly struggling. The two books clarified a lot of issues that had been plaguing me. As a result, I felt that I was less alone in my struggles, that my questions and issues were much the same as other people in the creative fields, even those who appear to be at the top their fields. 

I came across the passage at the top from The Diary of Anaïs Nin which neatly sums up much of what I had pulled from these two books. It also lined up well with my view of the need to create one’s own inner world or inner vision, a setting is built on your own beliefs and truths. Perhaps new and inhabitable planet? 

Whatever the case, this Passage from Anaïs Nin struck a chord with me and I will be filing it along Annie Dillard’s book, Art & Fear, and Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, so that I can pick it up at any time when I need an answer to that question.

Here’s a favorite song that I have only shared a couple of times over the many years I have done this blog. It seems to make sense with this post and for those of us who are struggling with the time we are now experiencing. This the great Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy with an acoustic version of You’re Not Alone.