So, remember that movie, In the Realms of the Unreal Morgyn told you to watch a few years ago (which you did and loved it) about the recluse janitor in Chicago, Henry Darger, who wrote and illustrated well, here, just read this…
Henry Joseph Darger was a reclusive American writer and artist who worked as a janitor in Chicago, Illinois. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story. Darger’s work has become one of the most celebrated examples of outsider art.
This guy diligently spent pretty much his whole life writing his books along with hundreds of watercolor paintings because obviously: he had to.
In 1968, Darger became interested in tracing some of his frustrations back to his childhood. It was in this year that he wrote The History of My Life, a book that spends 206 pages detailing his early life before veering off into 4,672 pages of fiction about a huge twister called “Sweetie Pie,” probably based on memories of the tornado he had witnessed in 1908. He also kept a diary to chronicle the weather and his daily activities.
4,672 pages about a tornado!
He was just an ordinary guy who, against lots of odds, made his art and wrote his stories, with from what I remember, no formal training whatsoever.
And let’s please re-read the awesome blog entry your friend Tiffany sent your way the other day from finslippy.com.
And the little movie that was attached to the blog entry that lots of folks should watch. It really is enlightening how he analyzes his own work at the end of the clip. And his honesty in the whole thing is really very reassuring in (mind you) a bummer sort of way, but hey, that’s truth if you dare to accept it.
Now.
So.
Really, there is no reason for you to stop making your items. Or feel as if you should stop working on them. In fact, it is clear you need to make MORE. Not less. In mass quantities. And at alarming rates.
The clan upstairs would have you believe otherwise, but we all know they are impostors that are jealous. Admittedly they showed up unannounced, uninvited today, and didn’t even bring snacks or drinks with them, all the while bossing you around and telling you, you are no good. They have shitty taste in art, music, food and drink (let me remind you again, none of which they brought with them) – so kick them out.
Today on my stroll I was struck by the brilliant color across the land. Perhaps the humidity is low, maybe its always like this, maybe I was slipped some shrooms, I don’t know, but all colors were shockingly vibrant and I had to take some pictures of it.
I think the people driving by thought I was “simple”, while I was looking at this dumpster, then later taking pictures of it, but I think it is hard to argue about how crazy colorful it all is. You have the blue sky, the bright green trees and then this pristine red dumpster. Never mind the little yellow flowers that were hiding in amongst everything.
I am stocking up on these sights now before winter and its gray blanket comes to cover us.
I have been retiring to the studio a lot these days. This is usually the state of chaos I work in. OCD’s avert your eyes, though, in small comfort to them, I do actually have this crazy habit of having to clean up my studio before I work, then it becomes a sea of paper clippings, empty (sometimes moldy) tea cups, paint crap everywhere, water glasses, and Captain Chaos standing in the corner, tipping his hat in my general direction for a job well done.
I just got finished with a piece called “In A Perfect World” inspired by an afternoon of listening to Democracy Now while fighting the strong urge to guzzle some rat poison.
…so rather than end it so badly, I decided some acrylic paint and the cutting of old magazines would help. I uploaded it into the portfolio section (in the upper right) if you would like to have a look-see at the final. These were done on 3inch by 2inch canvas’s.
Now I have switched over to making a watercolor of a Chickadee (started and pictured above)
My art “style” has acquired a bit of ADD in recent years. I know artists need to have a definitive “style” so that everyone recognizes them and buy lots of stuff, but at what cost to you as a growing person? The old masters tried different things. That is often forgotten, I feel. And they usually never saw the fame or money of their work while they were alive either, because I surmise that is not why they were doing it.
I envy those people that can walk away from what they have created and feel JUSTGREAT. I have come across, read, even met some that truly feel the power of creativity overtakes them like an epileptic fit commanded by God™ himself and are comforted by how an item now exists in the world that THEY created something that didn’t exist before. I marvel at that thought really and wonder how they got to that place.
As for me, I usually feel the “need” to make something, anxious yet soothed while I do it. I enjoy the actual “act” of creating and also happy to achieve “focus” for more than 45 min’s at a time. Then when I have finished a piece and feel “ok” about it, somehow Sir Procrastination shows up at the studio door and exclaims:
“Nothing semi-successful like this could be ever made again, making a new piece won’t feel half as satisfactory as you did while doing this one, so wait it out indefinitely until you feel you have the perfect idea or perfect technique. Proper wait for perfection is the key.”
(rather than just working and enjoying the time spent being productive)
And Sir Procrastination usually leaves me with his friend “Doctor-If-Only-You-Had” who talks about the absence of continuous work that has placated me for a good number of years.
(I really hate it when that bastard shows up.)
I have on occasion chucked pieces into the outdoor fireplace that even Sir Procrastination couldn’t talk me into keeping. And of those pieces that were burned or thrown away, I would do it all over again (and probably will in the near future)
I promised myself to have “a site” (this site) for my work because I felt it would make me “accountable” for not producing more work and shine a flash light in my procrastinating ways. And so far it has helped. I see the site has not been updated with artistic items and it aggravates me to make more.
I feel I am finishing up what seems to be a somewhat lengthy hiatus of being lost inside my creative life. I guess you could call it more of a draught especially if you consider “inspiration” part of a creative rain cycle.
As a result, I have been finding inspiration in unlikely places these days.
And if someone would have told me that my first post for the launch of my new website would be about Neil Diamond, I would have laughed and said “yah ok, seeyah at the quiet hospital!"
