As the house painting winds down, and John and I agree that the trim color we agreed on is... well, we just can't have it. (Such a First World problem, I know) So I'm waiting for the company rep to stop by, and see how much more it will cost us to have a house that we can stand to think about people driving past, on their way to someplace else, in such a hurry that it'd be a miracle if they noticed our house at all. But still...
And I've been thinking of this and that, as I watch the pile of detritus at the back of the driveway grow larger, rather than smaller, while the house painting project lumbers along. We're having the gutters replaced, and I insisted on saving the old ones, because God only knows I don't have quite enough stuff with which to clutter my life. The old storm windows have come off too -- they were attached years ago because the original windows were so drafty, but are now superfluous because of our brand-new, energy-efficient, (we hope) self-insulating double-paned windows; these old panes are all stacked against the pile of old gutters. Beneath which, is the stuff I myself piled in the driveway about two summers ago, when, with a second basement flood, I at least had an acceptable excuse. Plus it was raining cats and dogs while I was piling, so who was going to say anything to me?
I've also been making very very very faint-hearted attempts at shifting the bulk of this stuff from the driveway to Newark. (Most of you know this already. Talk among yourselves while I repeat myself) The last time I was in Newark (which makes me hear 'The Last Time I Saw Paris...'), as I brought maybe two armloads of this'n'that down into the space, I looked around to see where and how I might be able to install some sort of wall spaces, or other storage options, that would allow me to get my collection up off the floor, and arranged so I can actually see what's there. The only drawbacks to this plan being (a) expense, in terms of material; (b) expense, in terms of energy, both physical and emotional; and (c) the fact that, once all my materials have been arranged so I can look at them, I will actually have to look at them. I could impose a 'dark glasses in the studio' rule, but I know I'd only be fooling myself.
Bringing me to today's series of thoughts.
For one thing, what looks like a collection of random junk to any normal person who takes the time to stop at the far end of our driveway, and tries to discern what's tucked away under all those worn out blue plastic tarps back by that sad-looking garage, is for me the equivalent of a few compelling notes scribbled on many, many bits of staff paper, or a thousand quick sketches in a shelf filled with notebooks. I don't have much trouble at all, I'm sad to say, remembering what each and every oddment was going to produce, when I was certain that I would unquestionably have the time to make the work. (In the case of hoses and tubes, this isn't so much the case; but they're so useful generally, that they can be excused) Which means that, as I make the effort to weed through things, some of which I can't help saving for yet a while longer, while others I can chuck into the van, for a trip to the town dump, I'm admitting a sour defeat, regarding the work that will never be realized. Dropping the things off also has a mixed resonance -- a vague, unconvinced pride at having actually accomplished something on the day in question; a feeling of guilt, at abandoning something to which I made a silent promise to put to a better use than it was serving when I found it; and the cold hand of death, as always.
Surely, this predicament isn't odd, is it? Surely, for every famous sculptor whose name and work has graced the covers of international art magazines, and has commanded solo shows in renowned museums on several continents, there must be hundreds more artists, at the very least, who reach a certain point in their lives when they have to stand up, stretch from their labors, and realize that the sour taste in the mouth is not welding fumes, but rank failure.
I recall being urged, when I was in school, to read the lives of other artists, as a bolstering kind of guidance, I guess. The specifics behind the urging weren't generally forthcoming. No more than the clarification that, when I was reading about those other artists, it was understood that I would be reading about famous and successful artists. With the possible exception of van Gogh and Modigliani, whose stark personal tragedies seem somehow to be treated as exceptions proving the rule. Which rule seemed to be that good hard work and discipline was all that was needed, in order to stand up there next to Rembrandt or Donatello or Henry Moore and Joan Miro.
And those successful artist biographies would, indeed, have been helpful and instructive, if instead of aesthetic issues and theories, they had covered the patronage, the sales, the gallery representations, the family fortunes that made earning a living beside the point. As Oscar Wilde is credited with saying, 'When bankers get together, they talk about art. When artists get together, they talk about money.' It's the great aerosol support that is both omnipresent, and ignored. And I, more than many, have been blessed with a supportive partner for most of my creative life -- and it still hasn't been quite... enough...
So now, it seems, it would be far more helpful to have, at hand, a stack of biographies of well-meaning, well-trained, talented and disciplined artists, whose luck simply didn't lead them to the prominence that they might have hoped to achieve. Because I'd like to know -- at what point, exactly, does one give in? Is it an all-or-nothing proposition, or can one safely go on dragging out the inevitable defeat, as long as one can afford to make payment on a studio to which one can no longer climb, one's knees being what they are, after all? I've been around a few folks who were well aware that their earthly days were numbered, and in terms of years, they weren't in double digits any more, and these people were quite frank and open about giving their possessions away. Not needed anymore.
But these folks were mostly giving away books and furniture and pieces of costume jewelry. I have, stuck in my esophagus, a great stubborn hook of hope, I guess, that pulls at me when I offload a pile of screening, or some shelves, or... well, pretty much any art-related materiel. In some real ways, I hate this hoping, as I've said before -- it makes me feel pathetic and ridiculous, like a seventy-year-old showing up with tap shoes, to audition for a place in a chorus line.
And what do I do about all the glass that I've made? I was so pleased, when we were finally unpacking here in South Orange, to look back at incontrovertible evidence of how hard and how much I'd worked, while I had an ongoing and active access to hot glass facilities. Now... What on earth will I do with these mounds of blistered, non-functional stuff? These will really be painful to discard -- like taking a dull potato peeler to my skin, I would imagine. Where do I leave it? In a heap under a highway overpass in Newark? Giving 'The Last Time I Saw Newark' an even more gruesome connotation.
I could well be working right now (after I've cleaned up the little pathway I've left for myself in the basement, so I'll be able to get from one place to another without falling over, but still...). I have plenty of materials, and sufficient time, and enough strength and energy at present. But I don't have the heart for it. The act of artmaking, for the first time that I can recall, seems foolish, and a great waste of time. I'm reminded of a bakery shop I know of, on Greenwich St. in NYC, close to Christopher St. -- its windows always filled every day with trays of luscious fresh-baked goodies, all manner of colorful fillings and creamy toppings -- and I'm sure that, every day, much if not all of this supremely desirable foodstuff is simply given away, or tossed into the garbage. I am reluctant to admit how angry it makes me, to think that, having given my best, I will have succeeded only in creating a more puzzling load of trash for the trash collectors to deal with, on some Tuesday or Friday in the foreseeable future.
Where do all the failed artists go? The broken ballerinas? The orchestral musicians for whom there will never be any chair with their name on it? Why is it that, today, I seem so certain that, in their stories, maybe more than in the wild tales of household-name successes, lie some grim human treasures -- the remains of unsuccessful sea voyages, found centuries later -- that might, even in their sadness, cast a dim but reassuring light on my struggles -- telling me that it wasn't totally wrong or bad or stupid to hope; nor was it wrong or bad or stupid -- nor easy, nor pleasant -- to reach the end of hoping.
PS -- please be assured -- this entry isn't a complaint about insufficient fame. It would be nice, though, to have achieved what the slightly above-average insurance adjustor, or master plumber, aspires to -- say, a nice middle-class existence, with dental.
© 2012 Walter Zimmerman
Walter - you may not achieve world-wide acclaim, but you have opened my eyes to understand so much about art. You have articulated the link between the soul of an artist and the work. I now see the immense courage needed to put brush to canvas and I respect and honor the fact that the artist has put himself or herself out on that precipice for all the world to see. You have taught me so much that will allow me to understand courage and pain and to be a better teacher. Thank you.
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