Friday, February 8, 2013

Futurity Redux...

So, let's try this again.

In yesterday's mish-mosh of a post, I think I struggled more than necessary, to lay out what I'm discovering is a central conundrum in my life right now.  A conundrum I don't see evaporating anytime soon.

It's about what I feel is a loss of futurity -- the absence of any ultimate goal, any over-arching aim toward which I'm working.  At this point, at my age, with what I think are the ineradicable psychological impediments with which I seem to be faced, I just can't seem to fathom why I should do much of anything at all -- in spite of (currently) good health and an actual spate of creative ideas.  But... for what? 

Art-making has always been central to my life, and to my sense of identity.  As I've mentioned, I used to sit on my bed, up in the attic, writing the word 'Artist' over and over again, as though it were some magical mantra.  By then, and without realizing it consciously, I had already benefited from access to art making, as a way of coping with various household horrors -- chaining my brothers in bed at night, chaining them to the basement ceiling during the day, the never-ending confusion of changing demands and parental temper-tantrums -- that I faced as a pre-teen and adolescent. 

But I had absolutely no idea of what creating and maintaining an actual art career meant.  My sole encounter with the real work of a real artist was viewing one of the early traveling mega-exhibits that brought a trove of van Goghs to Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum in 1963.  This was long before the era of laser sensors and hyper-vigilant guards.  I was able to get really, really close to those seething surfaces that seemed almost more edible than visual experiences.  I probably sneaked, and touched one or two of them, naughty me.

Of course this was electrifying.  And, without any guidance -- or even an awareness that I might need guidance -- I decided that the van Gogh model was how artists unfolded their creative careers -- by devoting themselves ferociously to their work.  I more or less ignored the poverty and starvation part.  And I think I cross-pollinated van Gogh's brief but prolific period of painting, with the commercial success of Picasso.  Surely, I thought, if I worked hard enough and devoted myself to my creative life, I would... become an artist.   With health benefits.  Maybe even dental.

 I even thought it would help if I didn't draw or paint anything Vincent didn't -- no cars in my paintings, no sirree.  Surely that would guarantee... something?

This art goal was always just out of reach, as it turned out.  And while I did seek opportunities to show my work, I somehow lost track of what I think is really the central value of creativity -- the artist's confrontation with materials, the exchange of information, and the mutual transformation of both.  With a side order of therapeutic healing, and the occasional monetary reward. 

Today, because it seems that the Picasso part of the equation isn't going to work itself out, and because my steadfast efforts at productivity seem to have backfired (space and money being finite), I'm adrift.  I think (I emphasize, I think -- no certainty here) that I'm filled to the brim with wonderful notions of all sorts of things -- oil paintings (finally -- why else have I stock-piled luscious tubes of paint for all these years?); masks; more hanging figures; wall-mounted versions of same; and even a little glass and mixed media piece from time to time.  I certainly have enough glass.

But...  Why?  For some reason, I come back to that little naked man in the shower room, and finding myself wondering what impels him to get out of bed, dress himself, and go to the Summit YMCA.  What, if anything, does he hope for, at this stage of his life?  What are his goals?  What are his delights?  If, as is the statistical norm, he has children and grandchildren, then I consider the case to be closed -- these relationships springing from one's own body seem to be the closest we can get to anything like immortality.  If, like me, he has only cats at home, the picture becomes less clear.

So.  On the one hand, that dictum I've quoted before -- There is no story.  Detachment from expectation, and an openness to whatever unfolds in one's life, because... there is no story.  On the other hand, there is a story that has been emerging -- my own history is unquestionably real, and is the story I'm urged not to expect -- even though as a guide, it's no help, in terms of forecasting what might happen in the next few... pick a period of time, any period of time...  And somewhere in between these two conceptual poles, I find myself needing both to overlook my very real minefield of a past, and anticipate just enough of a story, to allow myself to resume making my creative work -- even though I know, to a sickening degree, just how much of a burden this creativity is. 

Is it any wonder, then, that I feel so disconnected within my own life now -- walking and talking the usual way, wearing familiar clothing in familiar settings, launching into one laughter-filled conversation after another -- all the while with the sense of being like a nutmeat rattling around, loose within its frail shell.  I feel a recurrent dread, every night when I lie down to go to sleep -- a sense of pointlessness and instability, all the more puzzling because it arises in that most banal and secure of homely places.  In the morning, I often feel a rush of a different brand of dread -- cringing because I've once again woken up alive, with little sense of the reason behind this persistence, other than the sheer stubborn animality of it all.

I don't know what to do.  I don't know what, if anything, to hope.  Up until now, I've felt somehow more integrated into the time and space of my own existence, like a properly-meshed zipper that glides along smoothly and does its job with ease.  Now -- to shift metaphors, excuse me -- it's as though I'm in a kitchen, preparing a cake, but alive to the possibility that I may not have time to mix the batter properly. Or pour it into the baking pan.  Or slide it carefully into the preheated oven.  Or see the steaming sweet result.  Because at any moment, and for an inescapable reason, I will certainly be called into another room.

At the very least, though, I think I'd make the cake chocolate.


©   2013     Walter Zimmerman 

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