It's been a long time

It has been a long time since I have posted anything on this blog. From time to time I felt frustrated and disappointed that I quit updating it. The past school year had been an extremely difficult one and in order to keep up with my studies I simply did not have the time. And when school ended I felt so lost and overwhelmed that I no longer could make enough sense of my own life to bother writing anything. That is until this morning. The inspiration came about naturally, organically really. It was not planned. And that's what I want to write about; not planning.

I've recently returned home from Connecticut. My timing has been impeccable seeing as my friends Sean Bullock and Dustin Klein are both in town but soon to be leaving. Seeing those guys as well as my good friends Jackson Howell and David Smith have been wonderful. The days have been filled with rich conversation, jam sessions in the park, midnight milkshakes at the Village Cafe, and a party full of faces I haven't seen in a long time. I'll elaborate on some of these events soon but let me just say that with the good times I've been having there has also been the slow creep of alienation. Virginia feels foreign to me at times now. I love my friends but don't know what home is anymore.

The changes in the air of places (which I have recently been trying to capture in water color studies) such as the orange of Virginia which mutes the blues of the sky, the lime green of the vegetation in southern Vermont/northern Massachusetts, and the soft pinks I found along the Mohawk river in upstate new york all seem to penetrate the way people think and move. Here in Virginia there is a haze which blurs distinction (like the dusk in the writings of the Czech philosopher Kohak which is when distinctions are possible but boundaries fade; a time for philosophy. Day is the time for techne and night the time for poetry.) Perhaps the humidity's perpetual haze permeates into us. The lack of clarity seems to mirror a looseness in our behavior for better or worse. The worse being the ways in which ambiguity floods our conversations. We say so much and listen so much and all the while there is a state of suspension. Did my words meet you? Did our thoughts touch? Do you see what I see? There is rarely a cold rejection but likewise rarely a promise of validation. So much speech feels inappropriate. There is too little time to rush.

Maybe it's in the air. Maybe its in the histories of drug abuse. Maybe it's in the incompatibility of the various paradigms we have adopted. Maybe it's in 4 years of separation fighting against 4 years of intimacy. Maybe it's like Bob Dylan says:

It's a restless hungry feeling
That don't mean no one no good,
When ev'rything I'm a-sayin'
You can say it just as good.
You're right from your side,
I'm right from mine.
We're both just one too many mornings
An' a thousand miles behind.

And as frustrating and occasionally painful as it all is where we connect there is a burst of creativity. At byrd park we sat on a green bench over looking the pond with the island in the middle. Few words were spoken. We all took out our instruments. My black acoustic strung with heavy strings for a darker voice, and Dustin's red acoustic with its light weight strings for a brighter voice, and David with his cello. I began to strum Emaj to C maj7 and after a few measures they joined in over me. Dustin is a self taught musician, I am a mediocrity on guitar (having left that talent in neglect with all my other skills for painting), and David is on a free ride to a conservatory in New Orleans for Cello. David is amazing. All three of us are at very different skill levels but somehow we made it work. I told David about how music becomes a part of the air of a place and it did that afternoon. Listening to him play arpeggios rapidly as the sun danced on the surface of the lake was awe inspiring. We blurred into the surroundings, into each others imaginations. I love loosing myself in music. This can only happen with an openness to the spontaneity music inspires in its surroundings. It seems to suck the drama out of every mundane object and leave it glistening on the surface. One's surroundings are a place to adapt and seek harmony within. It isn't through rigidity or chaotic action that this is done. It's through living in the moment and acting acordingly.

One individual approached us who must have known this well. He was an older black man with two children. Before introducing himself he borrowed my guitar which was in open G so he gave it back and took Dustin's. Immediately a very rythmic blues followed which Dustin and David soon joined in on. It was awesome! Afterwords he gave back the guitar and I shared with them a somber chord progression I had been working on. They all joined in, the older man improvising lyrics about our immediate surroundings which was both beautifully genuine and genuinely hilarious.

"kids play in the park mmmmm. . . . . LOOKIN' AT A DUCK!"

Later we went to Alex Criqui's where Sean Bullock and Jackson joined us. Dustin showed us his video "Shape." It was a very impressive animation about geometry in the world full of swirling fractles, ancient symbols, narration, music, colors, and ofcourse shapes. It illustrated and propagated the idea that the idea that the universe runs principally on mathematical models. I fundamentally disagree with this and see these models as tools used to accomplish certain goals. These models come about as naturally and as planned as any creative act. That is to say that there is a context in which there is a human problem to be resolved. Something must be happening that is like our models in some sense of the word in order for our models to be useful but forcing the idea that geometry is the answer to the big questions of life I fear may have rendered my friend a bit static. He can be a bit of an absolutist and I think of myself as being more of a pragmatist but that's alright. Dustin and I differ on this point but none the less his presentation was exciting, insightful, and illustrated some of the beauty of mathematics.

We then went to a party where Soyoung and a lot of kids from MICA were. It was fun. Danielle asked questions about post art school life and Sean told a stories about his escaped con cowoker and her adventure running from the law with a man who printed his own money. We listened to records and talked about Michael Jackson's death. It was a lot of fun and made me wish I went to more parties.

Jackson had to leave to go to another party but before doing so stoped by the Village Cafe with Sean and I for a late night milkshake. He told us about how he is no longer into studio art and wants to pursue writing. An interesting discussion on how to go about writing or creating art in general started. Jackson told us about how he didnt want to plan things out too much. He just wanted to write when he felt inspired to about what ever inspired him so that it would come about honestly and expressively. I know that every worthwhile piece of art I've ever done carried an element of spontaniety where I didn't comepletely know what I was doing until it was done. It was "reactionary" as Jackson put it. Reacting perpetually to the richness of felt experience is a much better road than doing what Sean says he did. Sean worked with an agenda. When he wrote fiction he wrote because he already had something to say. It would read rigid cold and well like he had an agenda. It's funny because in Sean's non fiction, and too my surprise something he wrote to me on the fly (which for years I thought was a story he had written and spent a great deal of time on) he can be hilarious, tragic, and extremely moving. All of this reminded me of what Power Boothe, my dean at the art school, said about art. He said "a painting can't lie." By this he meant that it always comes though. If you were in a state of awe when you painted it will come though. If you "jumble together a bunch of things to try to make a statement it will read as you jumbled a bunch of things together to try to make a statement." When things speak to our experience they must speak to the here and now. Jackson had a very intimate understanding of the importance of all this. He has matured a great deal and has a wisdom about him. I can't wait to read some of the stories he's getting started on.

Overall my first full day back was more than I could hope for. I've learned in the days which have followed through more conversations with Jackson and other friends as well that our relationships are not above the same values problems which affect our philosophies, art, music, and writing. It's hard seeing everyone change but you have to grow and it can be wonderfully productive. When people give each other space they can come back to a friendship with new insights and new creations. It is productive. In the future I think I'll try to be more patient. I've always been a somewhat impulsive person and I've grown weary of myself. I want things to creep up on me. I want to be surprised by new experiences and create art which surprises me. No more stiffness, no more worrying about having something important to say. I just want to live my life as richly and deeply as possible and I am thankful to my wonderful circle of friends all throughout the country for helping me along.