At the Intersection of Reality and Possibility
Before anyone thinks to wonder, I don’t remember when I began my first attempts at visual “art.” It was certainly before I went to Kindergarten, and much to my mother’s disgust, I was not particular about where I practiced my “art.” Her reaction as I recall was not quite as emphatic as when I set the contents of the laundry basket on fire, but I can assure you her critique of my handy work was not positive.
And I confess it would be a gross exaggeration to suggest that my earliest cave paintings where we lived gave the slighted indication of talent. I could report that my work in representational art improved as I got older and by the time I was in high school, I was painting seascapes and naval battles between frigates and ships of the line. they were recognizable but the sober truth was they weren’t at all remarkable.
It was about this time that the only art teacher at our school convinced me of what I already suspected. I did not have enough talent to be an artist (at least not a representational artist) and he had no interest in teaching abstract art, so I focused my attentions on more traditional academic pursuits. It’s probably just as well. I might never had messed with painting again, had it not been for buying a condo and having to repaint it.
As I fooled with the acrylic latex paint, I started brushing abstract designs on the walls and found it to be an oddly relaxing way to relieve the tedium of slapping paint on walls. It was a ex-wife paying a visit out of the blue who caught me at it liked some of my doodling and accused me of having talent. It’s the last time she ever said anything nice about me.
As often happens with me, the business of living got in the way of exploring my budding inclinations to experiment with painting the random images projected on my ceiling by the street lights or the fanciful dancing images cast in the afternoon by the trees. Eventually, I decided to invest in the paint, brushes and the other necessities.
Painting has become a compulsion for me. Not unlike my writing, images come into my head, seemingly without any conscious effort. It’s not quite like some mysterious force is guiding me, but I have come to understand how the Greek philosophers arrived at the notion of a daimon, as a guiding spirit.
I Create Because...
I create because I can’t NOT create. I have never succeeded in stilling the whisperings in the soul I often question that we even have. But it won’t shut up and I can’t not listen. So I paint, I write and put it out there. Out where—perhaps—others might see, or might read, and might be nudged just a few more faltering steps closer to their most authentic selves. Is this not the greatest gift we can give each other? The example, the courage or the inspiration to be the best version of ourselves?
It is the only calling in my life that has ever made much sense to me. I am happiest and most myself when I am musing about the possible. When I try to grasp that ethereal, undefined something I firmly believe lives in all of us. I am validated to some degree when someone buys my books, or admires my paintings, of course. But it is the act of creating that makes me who and what I am. And it is the act that is, if not its own reward, it is most decisively the “why” that drives me.