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January 16, 2006

Sphinx

At my first (and only) gallery opening in 2003 I had the peculiar experience of having complete strangers come up to me and genuinely inquire about my work. It is the sort of event you fantasize about and spend hours silently rehearsing for while making something but, become completely caught off-guard for when the actual moment presents itself. I imagined myself going into grand dissertations about the impact of my work on the West Shore community of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and how it will be the first step into turning the ADM grain processing plant into something more, something eternally beautiful, that would soon take it's place in the annals of art history beside Willem De Kooning and - do I dare?...Yes, yes I do - Marcel Duchamp. These reveries are the sort of vain posturing that can only exist in the warm, segregated petri dishes of a private collegiate art education and I am thankful everyday that I was able to indulge so richly in its frivolity.

Perhaps if I had chosen theatre for a major I could have enacted this fantasy but, being the shy stuttering and emotionally withdrawn artist that I was, I simply smiled and awkwardly asked if they had read my artist statement. This small event, coupled with many others throughout my recent existence, have brought to my attention that I am absolutely horrendous at spoken communication.

Oh, what is that you say? You would like to hear more about my work? Well, I don't want to be selfish but, how can I refuse when you insist so?! Semi-colon parentheses.

Whenever I sit down to write a post it is a rather arduous process involving more rewrites than I can ever account for. I don't do drafts either for that would be far too expressive and not nearly so neurotic. While in the process of writing I cannot leave behind a sentence until I feel as though I have brought it under complete subjugation; making it my slave by forcing it to transport my heavy stone locutions up primitive ramps in hopes of constructing an impressive pyramid-shaped idea. I am a harsh task master: constantly deleting and rewording til my malnourished workers of fragments, punctuation and grammar get the damned thing right and I am free to move on to the next paragraph. This arduous process - this chiseling - continues until I am satisfied with how my human-featured ideas have melded into the sleek, lion-esque physique of the world-wide intertron.

But, unlike the Egyptians, my work is done inside, on computers, away from fresh air and frolicking youth who might inspire me. I would like to tell all of you that this is because I am concerned with waste; that, unlike Mr. Sedaris, I don't want to maliciously destroy a forest in testament to my frustrating writers block. But, I think that this dependence on technology beguiles my desire to create another illusion: that these ideas are expressed casually - off the cuff even. That, after a hard days work, I can simply set aside ten minutes to empty my consciousness of the things that caught my attention and stitch them together into some kind of recognizable cohesion. But, alas, my mind is terrible at that sort of thing so I am left to dream of a day in the distant future when it could be possible; that I could place my neuroses aside and actually speak what my brain knows on instinct but is unable to instantly translate to my mouth.

This is why when I orally debate or try to vocalize my feelings that I get quizzical looks of confusion. This is because I am not afforded the time to research my sentences; to try them out for a while and see if they are working how I would intend them to. If my writing is like ancient Egyptian monument building then my speaking is like looters in a riot; a scattering crowd of individual ideas clamoring for what they want most without taking time to think if what they are doing is harming someone else.

At lunch yesterday my mother told me that I get this from her and she apologized for passing this trait on to me. At first I thought she was being diplomatic and foolish but, the more I processed her statement the more the sheer heat of it burned away the impurities and left behind a shining immutable fact. You see, because of this, I am dependent on the patience of those who love me and I must humble myself to that fact. When I speak incorrectly I am imposing on their time by silently requesting their assistance in helping me discover what I truly wanted to say.

Throughout my growing up my mother would speak harsh words only to return an hour later, crying in apology for what she had said and assuring my father, sister, brother and I that she didn't mean it. I always thought these proclamations were signs of weakness, a badge of shame to be worn by those who lacked the mental capacity to 'be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.' Instead, this apology is the communication of an ashamed inability to speak of the nebulous feelings that sit beneath my core; the impulses that silently dictate my actions but lack the physicality with which I could describe them. These moments of revelation fill me with thanks to God for such great friends who silently offer up great tracts of this patience and extend their unconditional love back to an imperfect me.

Oh and I got a DS for Christmas which fulfills the prophecies set forth in these three posts and takes away much of time that I would spend in writing so that one stone takes care of the two traditional birds that I usually write about: my current video game habits and why I haven't been posting content here more frequently.

Posted by Jon at January 16, 2006 01:35 PM

Comments

Posted by: MarthVader at February 3, 2006 03:31 PM