Why I Paint - Part 2

"Living, for you, is an exercise in finding things to write about." That's what my great friend and muse, Meredith, had to say to me. She's almost right. The fact is, even though I make my living as a writer, I'm not sure if this is my best mode of expression. I think in images and abstractions; translating that into English can be rough going. In conversation, I fish for words and say "um" a lot. So I'd like to amend Meredith's observation to state:

Living, for me, is an exercise in finding things to create about.

If I'm not doing something creative with paint or words or music, let the record (and my Internet history) show that I'm just not good company for myself or others. Plus, I've always dabbled in visual arts, messing around with graphic design like this:

or mixed media stuff like this:

59 degrees and 54 feet North, 10 degrees and 54 feet East, magazine pieces, found paint and found glue on wooden architectural scrap, 10" x 5.25", 2011. 

...and this (they come as a pair):

Haugesund, They Say, Is Built on Herring Bones, magazine pieces, found paint and found glue on wooden architectural scrap, 10" x 5.25", 2011.

I also do conceptual installation-type pieces, like this:

Hazard, typewriter, wooden box with scary stickers, driftwood, 27" x 27", 33 pounds, 2009

None of this may be to your taste. And that's okay. I'm just trying to illustrate a point. But paint has always lurked in the background; specifically abstract stuff, like this really tacky riff on Japanese calligraphy that's so bad I can't even show it to you:

Thus, as I take up painting once again, I'm feeling the exhilaration that comes after a long dry spell: I feel myself coming alive, like a tree warming to its sap after a long winter. When it comes my neo-expressionist stuff (their label, not mine), that dormant season extends back to before I can remember.

Joel's Painting Improved: Now with 30% More Piss!

When Alfred Hitchcock's masterful Rear Window was released in 1954, conservative critics complained about its subtext of voyeurism. Hitch responded by saying that "no amount of moral consideration could have prevented me from making this." The way I see it, those are eternal words to at least consider in every area of life. What does this mean for the kind of painting I'm doing right now? My current project was borne out of a deep dissatisfaction with the status quo at the alt-healthcare clinic mentioned in my last post. The walls were bare, we had no budget to do anything about it and business had gone into its seasonal decline. I had a little extra time on my hands and a lot of pent-up, frustrated energy. The project emerged from a big bucket of FUCK IT.

Then, when I first disclosed to one of my business partners that I was going to take this art project on, he expressed doubts about my ability to pull it off (as he'd continually been doing about a business that was—and is—doing quite well). His defeatist attitude gave me a gunpowder-spark I could use to show him, myself and whatever audience the the paintings might have that I could produce material art. FUCK HIM.

Also, when I was a Jehovah's Witness, I allowed my path as an artist to be quashed by a code of arbitrary, byzantine rules laid down by its governing body. In that world, your life is expected to revolve around studying Watchtower literature, attending Kingdom Hall meetings and, of course, going out in the door-to-door ministry. Any other interests were supposed to be mere hobbies. But if you're going to create anything of lasting value, you pretty much have to orient your life around that artistic pursuit, one way or another. For years, I dealt with those warring interests. Keeping art in my life then was an act of rebellion; ten years after leaving that religion, I still feel like I'm transgressing.* FUCK THEM.

As you can see, there is anger behind my work. But that doesn't mean my work is angry. I just want to contribute something beautiful to the world and, in view of the obstacles I face(d), I've been able to leverage the caustic value of my anger to make it happen. When used properly, anger can be the Ajax Cleanser of the soul.

Though I did dip into the business for a few bucks, most of the money to take this on came out of my own pockets—money I could ill afford. For me, then, the "moral considerations" that I needed to repudiate came in the form of discouragement from others, the morality of financial responsibility and the ingrained Witness code of "normal behavior." That latter obstacle was a doozy for me. It kept me in a screwed-up religious community that, if allowed to continue, probably would have killed me.

Jungian philosophy argues that the obstacles we face are actually created in our subconscious; that they are equal in size to the life we want to build; that they are there for this express purpose: to be overcome. The point is, I had to deal with a lot of demons—internal and external—just to clear away the space needed to create something of any worth. That's part of the ongoing process that I'm trying to document here.

What I'm trying to get at is the big WHY. Why the hell am I doing this art thing? Why am I writing about it? It seems 50 percent too pat—too MarketingRetreatBreakoutGroup—to call this a discovery project. I feel like I'm digging a tunnel through a mountain from two opposite ends: on the one end, I'm trying to articulate my (presumably pre-existing) theoretical underpinnings; on the other end, it seems as if I'm conjuring up theory where none existed before. The latter sounds off-puttingly haphazard, as if I'm making theory up as I go along. (And that feeling might account, in part, for the fear that many artists have, that they are mere hacks.) But there does seem to be a scientific basis for it. I think there's a whole meta-branch of physics devoted to considering that moment of singularity where hypothesis and discovery fall into each others' arms and sculpt reality as they go. Isn't there?

All right, that's enough of me! I'm going to take a whack at explaining this in more concrete terms in my next post.
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*If, contra Witness teaching, the "kingdom" that Jesus was always yammering about can be equated with reality, then his words can be reframed suchly: "Seek first reality and all these other things will be added to you." "Authenticity is within you (or, 'in your midst')." "Our ultimate truth who art beyond the veil of maya, let thy reality come." This is the only way Jesus' teachings make sense for me any more.