A Fragment
from April
studio notes...
April
18, 2006. Oakland.
Afternoon.
I would pull at your heartstrings the way mine
are pulled… No, I would have your heartstrings feel as mine feel. I cannot
pull at your heartstrings the way mine are pulled because my experiences
are not yours and so what pulls me cannot pull you. Thus, my work is
doomed to fail… sending only little sentimental messages saying, “I feel…
so you should feel for me.”
And so
perhaps I cannot make the “art of surface,” the nicer vision of our daily
lives I thought of trying to make the other day. Only the tearing sense of
loss in my gut will make your gut tear too.
The sense
of loss… in youth, everything to gain; in maturity, everything to build
and keep, in age, all to lose.
For an art
such as mine—expressionist, for better or worse—there is only the cry of
soul. And the content of that cry changes with the life of the soul
itself. “For everything there is a season…” and now my season is fall.
So, say
what you have to say, too soon it will be too late.
Late afternoon.
For Zola, it was J’ accuse; for me, it’s
J’ refuse. I refuse death, and art gave me the pomegranate*
(again). “What goes around, comes around.”
*Note: For the pomegranate art gave
me, see #8, April
2006.
