One should not be afraid, when it comes to writing, to take a trip into all things relentless, horrific, dark, and all things forbidden. To be with a character who is going to do nothing but descend and descend and descend, and are you going to take that journey with them? One of the things that writing does is allow you to face your fears in a safe form, and survive.
I Love to draw, and I love to write. And I love to do those two things because I have total control over them. I now keep to myself at times in the upstairs bedroom to continually process such ideas and images without the fear of being disturbed, questioned, without anybody saying 'why?' The great enemy of Art is 'why.' Art should be its own justification. It requires no questions and it requires no answers. It is its own answer. And if it isn't its own answer, then it isn't art.
My head is like a jug, in which I'm pouring ideas out through drawings and writing in any way imaginable. I've got so much I want to say and convey. The things that mean the most to us are the things we're afraid of speaking. Drawing and writing, for me, allows me in some way to channel them all.
The work takes time, you can't short change this stuff. You can't do this stuff half heartedly. You either give your heart, gut, and balls, and soul to it... or don't do it at all. Why bother? You have to give everything to art. Otherwise, it's not going to be worth a damn. It's not going to linger, nor be there after you're gone. I would love to someday make work which lasts beyond me. The best of what I know about the world, or the ones I imagine.
To someday have someone sit down to read something I've done, study drawings, or even watch it...I'll take them from the beginning, without breaking the surface of their known reality and violating their understanding of what 'the real' is, slowly coax them. Seduce them, into a place which is richer, darker, more mythic, more full of echoes and mysteries, profound innocence and profound guilt and evil. And finally oneness which is right at the heart of things.
Everything we make, is based upon things we know. There is no such thing as originality. What we must take are the things that move us most profoundly, move our hearts, move our souls. Places you go, faces you see, make a catalog in your head constantly of which charge you up like a battery. And normally you could carry around, or have, a notebook which could contain anything. Because you never known when something you see will eventually mean something. So, I keep a notebook beside my bed. And anything that occurs to me, it can be a little sketch, a turn of phrase, or a random mental image, I'll jot it down.
It doesn't matter how benign, odd, simple or stupid it is. I think artists are more vulnerable. And living from day to day. To me, what I thought as I was a kid, that I was an odd child because I felt things deeply. I was shy, fat, had terrible sight, bullied. I found as I grew older that, where as I expected to grow out of this, it didn't "pass away." So, I had to find a place to put these feelings. And, where does someone young tell someone they're having these weird and strange dreams involving creatures and strange imagery...who could I tell? I didn't trust anybody. The only thing I trusted was a piece of paper. So, the piece of paper became my father confessor.
And what do you do with that confessor? You are honest. The thing you have to be is honest. There is no use lying to the piece of paper. No use telling the untruth to the piece of paper. Just say what is in your heart. And something emerges when you start to tell those honest confessions. Over a period of years, something appears that is yours and only yours.
I never think that I want to be (fill in the blank.) All I wanted to do was be sane. And the only way I could be sane was by allowing these dark and complex thoughts have a voice. And what I discovered was when I started to create stories or draw around those voices, that I could find so many others who lived in this "world."
Care about your life through your mind. When we think, or imagine, we can put it all down, and not think whether it'll make us money, or the next big thing. Just caring about the love or hatred you feel, anger or loss you feel...then that is a sacred art.
Think about the word imagination. Think about the number of wonderful roots in that. The word magic is in there. The words "I am" are in there. There are all kinds of wonderful things in the word imagination. And it is used in the most trivial fashion. It is used to describe Spielberg movies. *gag* We have to protect the sacred right of each talented individual to pursue their imaginations into the most private and profound parts of their souls.
We have to be ready to stand up for who we are as human beings with unique imaginations. There is only you. There is only one of you. It doesn't matter how many times you have been regimented, pushed around...YOU are YOU. And that is the artist's motto. I am who I am who I am. And if you don't listen...go fuck yourself. We're all spiritual beings on our own quests. Whether it be an Artistic one or it's a quest to make life. It has to be something that you give everything to. There is no half measure, no compromise.
It is important to speak what is in your heart...and not bullshit. Life is not a rehearsal. It is important as Artists to celebrate everything in our lives that is sad, happy, transcendent, trivial, and we embrace. And that we throw nothing out. We have what we have.
If the Artistic spirit moves in you...you fucking allow it. Make poems, songs, stories, drawings. Don't worry if they're good or bad. Don't worry, just make. Just do. Just be. Don't apologize. Don't worry if your neighbor thinks your an asshole or not. You are responsible for one thing and one thing only: that spirit that lives in you. I choose to say that spirit is put there by everybody and everything, not God. It makes us unique.
Live your life through Art. That's all you. I still love to smile...it's an Art form.
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