Sorry, no poetry today. . . just a little rant regarding how serious we take ourselves sometimes. Directed at no one in particular and for now reason in particular, just something I've thought about from time to time and thought I'd share.
Sometimes I like my art to not have some sort of pre-determined motive, not to be conditioned according to my preconceived ideas, my vision, or my "purpose-statement". Sometimes art just happens, sometimes it happens so fast that I don't even get it fully at the time of its occurance and it's only once I go back to it and read the words for words and not just the sounds they make that I really gain understanding (or am I just forcing my now determined understanding onto something for which it wasn't there at the time of its creation? . . . I don't know). So maybe artist's purpose statements are good, maybe they can serve a purpose at times, but don't fence me in (sometimes all I've got is rebellion. . . wow, is that ever childish). Sometimes I just write because the words and sounds sound cool in my head and sometimes they have meaning behind them that I know of and sometimes they mean much more to others than they do to me. By way of metaphor; sometimes I play baseball to win, to compete, or to improve on a particular part of my game, and sometimes I play to play. . . I like to run, I like to throw, I like to catch and I'll make a diving attempt just to see if I can. And so too in my writing do I occasionally write to play. As much as I like Nirvana and front man Kurt Cobain, maybe he was wrong on this one, maybe it's alright to not know what it all means when you write (the song "in bloom" is written, in part, about this very thing). Maybe part of the fun is in the mystery.
That is so true, and wierd - that 'sometimes art just happens' and we don't fully comprehend it till we go back and read it. What is this? As if we are, but aren't producing it. I'd love to see more commentary on that very thing...a strange but wonderful mystery:)
Posted by: Sara | Oct 21, 2006 at 08:54 AM