Last night was inspirational and in perfect conjunction with Annie Dillard's "The Writing Life". I love hearing people read their own work. But the best part, for me, was the Q and A.
I'm intrigued by process and the array of conditions under which art can produced. I've always admired artists who can work outside or in a busy cafe. They look alert. Groomed. When I work, either drawing or writing, I'm usually pajama clad, armed with a coffee cup in one hand, and perched precariously on the edge of my seat. I like to stretch out the morning and inhabit a world that is only mine. Nighttime sneaks up on me and I regretfully bid adieu to my project. It's like puppy love in a way - the desire, desperation really, to come back to it as soon as possible. Brian Wilson wrote "God Only Knows" about music. When I learned this fun fact, I felt immediately kindred.
I had this art professor once who realized how lucky he was to love his work. He admitted to our class that he felt like he'd been getting away with something for twenty years. That's the thing about creative careers. Even the most tortured or unrecognized artist emits this thing, this indescribable thing. They're doing something right and something instinctual, even primal, is satisfied.
Maybe it's an ability to listen to the self. Art, to me, is something created by a human. That's as far as my definition goes. Sometimes it is functional. Sometimes it's edible. Sometimes it is merely conceptual. People, understandably distracted by life, ignore the voices of their bodies, emotions, and instincts. It's as though they speak in a language we, as a species, have forgotten. Writing, art, carpentry, whatever your craft, is a calling. All of the writers seemed to allude to that last night. It just is. For those who can decipher or remember, this compulsion to create is like a physiological need. It might work, it might not. Just keep working.
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