One Sitting
Start now, it says
Start now, not later.
I will start.
And I do.
And I still do.
And I keep do.
And I watch my watch,
Finally.
No worries, it lies,
The will is timeless.
Tomorrow I will start.
Tomorrow I do.
Tomorrow I don’t.
October 15, 2009 at 8:18 pm | Poetry | No comments
The Confessions of an Aspiring Artist
Beauty can be found in the simplest things in life. Art can be made of the most trivial little details of the world. Art can be made from life. The making of art gives meaning to all these things.
Or at least that’s what I’d like to say, being an artist. Everyone wants to feel important, like the things they do–or create–have significance
I constantly am in notice of small details. I remember the simple things in life. I eat a dinner and slowly chew. I stare in awe at the little black shadows formed where grains of white rice overlap. I am inspired to a pattern; there is an incredible balance in the rounded ellipses of the white rice and the concave deltas of the black shadows. They create patterns which are logical. They create patterns which are meaningless. They create the food of my thoughts for the next hour.
It’s always so easy to imagine yourself doing something which you never do. You never even try to do that thing you imagined. I imagined my self sketching the rice, savoring that moment when it was arranged on my plate in a way it would never be arranged in again. But, the thought was too absurd. I had been calmly eating dinner for an hour. I was supposed to be eating dinner, not staring at rice, not observing rice, not admiring rice.
Being an artist, it is in my nature to observe. Inspiration comes from the most unexpected places, they say. I walk around in a random small-town parking lot, the kind that isn’t very paved. I am always looking down, looking up, and looking around me when I walk. Sometimes I become self-conscious of my observation; no one else I see seems to move their head around as much when they walk. But I must take full use of my own eyes.
It is this way in this parking lot. I feel the bumps of the little rocks below me, and suddenly I am drawn to their attention more than the sparse cars, more than the placid sky, more than the little rustic castaway furniture store. I see these rocks are variegated in shades of gray. There are many grays. But, every few rocks there is a perfectly brown-orange one. I am in awe of the way these rocks are arranged. In an instant, I stare. In an instant, I think.
I look at the rocks around. The whole parking lot has these same rocks scattered about, but in a cursory scan, I feel that no other patch of this lot is arranged nearly to the perfection of the one I stand on. There are too-numerous brown-orange rocks clumped together. There are too-vast expanses of gray rocks. This chance deeply humbles me, and I muse my gratitude for the small things in life.
I have played through such scenes in their entirety, continually. I am never truly bored because I am always occupied. People around me see me standing frozen looking down at the ground. People around see me with a faraway gaze. Perhaps I waste my time. I am looking for something which is not there; a meaning to it all.
But I live for the novelty of seeing more rocks, and I am constantly creating the nature of my mind. I create the structure of my thoughts. I observe, and I remember. Anything that can make a mark can sketch. Life is a tool to draw a portrait of existence. And the making of art gives meaning to these things.
Or at least that’s what I’d like to believe, being an artist.
October 11, 2009 at 12:16 pm | Lifepost, Reflections | No comments
Inspiration
I had an epiphany today,
So suddenly I see,
Gifts of perception, giving way.
My edges are gone
and tree by tree
Leaves level to splatters
On this Monet sky.
Horizon is but a word,
Faded in memory,
for green becoming of blue,
and blue gorging on green.
Meaning is a cirrus-thin cloud,
Escaping reach yet
Ever so sweet; Let it flow
and squint your eyes.
To see like a blind man
Who still knows a blur
Is to understand the
Beauty of color. Neglected,
When from this world,
We found form.
If upon my own,
Of this canvased foresight
I tell. It is with
The vivid and livid, colors
I spill.
In leaves of paint splatter I say,
“I had an epiphany today…”
August 25, 2009 at 8:35 pm | Poetry | No comments
Improvement Efficiency
The Dragon’s Scales
In a far long gone-by event, I had caught myself staring at an even further gone-by drawing of a dragon. There was nothing spectacular about this drawing of a dragon. The pose was static. The perspective was bland, making the picture flat. The pencil shading was more or less standard.
Specifically though, I had remembered that at one point, this picture was one in which I had dedicated multiple uncounted hours. Now, while multiple hours may be incomparable to the time spent by some artists on some of their keystone masterpieces, a stale, unspectacular picture of a dragon did not seem to require such time.
At some point, this picture of a dragon had many rather semi-hexagonal scales strewn crudely through the entirety of its body in pencil. In the end though, this painstaking effort did not contribute to the appearance of the picture as the scales had mostly been smudged away by time. Even in the beginning, the scales felt to be a futile effort. Not because they smudged away. Such things could be prevented.
Purpose
The addition of the scales was only one that could enhance the specific picture and nothing more. The scales were not drawn out in a thoughtful way. Their main attraction was to draw the awe of viewers who sympathized with the time spent.
No stride in improvement of technical skill was made through the rendering of the scales. Perhaps muscle memory of drawing the semi-hexagonal shapes in a specific pattern was gained, but such was little reward for the effort spent.
When catching myself staring, thinking of the old scales on the dragon picture, I wondered why I had drawn the scales in the first place.
I knew I was not a fully-fledged and technically knowledgeable artist. Why had I spent my time with such idlings as drawing out the scales on a dragon?
Goal-Oriented
The thing I vividly remembered most was that through all those past days of doodling little scales on dragons and other fanciful such things, I believed my goal in art was to improve.
So, I sat there thinking of how many artists improved by doing studies. The main thing that separated me from them was that I had not made an attempt to analyze the appearance of the world around me as I sketched.
And, I simply sat there wondering. What kind of approach to improvement might be more effective than drawing scales on a dragon? How does one efficiently improve technical art skill?
All the same, I wonder whether a true practitioner of the form may ever need bother themselves with such things, and thus I wonder if one such as myself may be better suited in the classification of an observer of the art world. Then again, if the goal of an artist is to achieve realism, would not a practitioner do well to consider how to achieve the state of being capable of imitating the world?
In the end, all I can say is that if an artist’s goal is truly to imitate the real world, then it would seem that analyzing the appearance of the world through studies is truly the path to improvement.
December 29, 2008 at 12:38 am | Reflections | No comments
Urges
Must… Write
I’ve always wondered how the demographics of the world might respond to a poll or survey about the urge to write. I could envision the questions on a questionnaire, but I can’t quite envision the situation in which the questionnaire would be given. I may have been ill aware that such a poll or survey has already been conducted, but I tend to go along wondering evermore.
The urge to write, or perhaps the urge to simply create anything, is an interesting one although I may not be cohering to the wholest of truths in this statement as I make no comparison to the other urges of the world. All I know is that the urge to write is a sudden one, stimulated by realizations, books, conversations, or anything that could be inspiring.
And, in the sudden event of the overwhelming urge, there is a simple fleeting moment when it’s all clear, and the poetic or clear descriptions fly through the mind. There is that moment when inspiration strikes, and the thoughts will spin with “Must… Write” until…
It all ends before the pen is ever lifted. The urge to write lingers, the descriptions that felt so right deteriorated, and it wasn’t because of an over-extended blink.
Moments Past
In my personal experience with this urge to write, I find that although inspiration may be fleeting, the urge to write is not. This urge starts in a sudden moment, but it is not like a great enlightenment unless it was started by a great enlightenment. The idea lingers in the mind, and the thought may or may not be nourished.
Even moments past the time of inspiration, even days past, I find myself considering the words to write to a short little article. The words are woven together in the way that seems perfect, and yet the words shift with each mental rerun. All through the moments that pass, beyond the point of inspiration, the pen is never touched, and the idea remains in its little eggshell, waiting for the right moment to hatch. But, the urge remains an urge until it has been thought out so much that the mind becomes content and forgets the urge. The hatchling that was to be emerged only as an idealization of the creature within.
Perhaps, this is only the effect of laziness, but I’ve always thought it curious that thoughts of writing could compensate for actual writing, that the idealized image of the hatchling that never was could compensate for the live thing. Perhaps, these are the very writings that are not necessarily to be made to be read but rather written to be written, for the sake of writing and the love of sheerly meshing words together. Thus, to merely mentally construct these writings unintended for an audience would be satiation enough for the act of thinking the words through is little less than the act of laying the thoughts into concrete symbols and letters.
Moments Remembered
But when the moments are long spun into the past, those urges to write are not forgotten, and the thoughts remained archived. The exact descriptions and sentences envisioned are lost, and it is those I wish I had recorded. I can only remember how perfect those words seemed in those moments like a parent remembers the perfection of a deceased child.
But then, I reflect upon those urges to write much like in this article. I wonder… Was I just exploring a world of clichés all along? Clichés were the words that seemed to fit. Was I just wasting my time in never writing but always thinking of things to write? Alas, if I were to affirm, I discover that this ‘waste’ becomes inevitable and that in questioning it, I further it.
I remember things. I decide that I should keep a notebook handy, but I cannot bring myself to record. Lost in a world of writing in thought, I must write yet I will not, so I let the moments pass with no regrets.
I’ve always wondered how many people would read this article and nod their heads in response to each little step of this recurring cycle of wanting to write that feels so meaningful. I’ve always wondered how many people would check yes in that questionnaire I envision, the one that asked “Have you ever written without lifting the pen?” I’ve always glanced towards those who suddenly lose themselves in a world of thought, wondering if they are hit by a similar phenomenon.
I think us trivial thinkers are all writers in our little world of observations and thoughts from observation. The urge to write never lifts the pen because in the scheme of things, it is the urge to consider.
November 9, 2008 at 9:34 pm | Reflections | No comments