I’ve talked with another artist friend about this project and he suggested that I look at Art Brut. Although I have had training, I still feel lost in a world that seems to have no place for me. So the question remains, why do I even bother? Because at a certain point it comes down to the need, the desire to express what is inside. I believe this is also the very thing that drives these outside artists to create regardless of the consequences and regardless of the opinions of others.
A cool outsider artist: Jean Debuffet
As much as I try to be a part of the art world, Champaign, IL is not the place to be a part of the art world. It is a cell of its own, with only the understanding of its own existence. That may seem harsh and that is the only view that I have, my own. It is a safe existence with little consequence and little progress. I have as much blame to bear as the rest of the art community. When has my art challenged the community? When has my art challenged myself? When am I going to get past the idea that I have to fit into a set pattern and rules? Yet, maybe I should be interested in just being a part of this local community. How can I make this community better? Maybe me seeking my answers can help others regardless of how it is received and even in making myself understand my own demons, make myself a more effective human being. I really hope that I can become that better person.
On that topic, I must say that digging into the feelings that I have about my wife’s cancer has not been a very pleasant one. I can’t remember ever crying about it, more often I felt like closing my eyes and swinging at everything that moved. I accepted that we needed to fight the cancer with reckless abandon. I don’t believe that I ever dealt with the fear and now I get flashbacks like the moment of reliving an accident and I realize that as I am working on the failed poems project I get to relive moments and moments that may have never happened, its so hard to tell. Is this what I have been reduced to? Searching for answers to problems I know we’ll never solve? Do I have a debt I owe to myself, a debt I owe to my wife? What will ever pay down this debt? And who keeps the balance? I have so much work to do, so little energy, and so much fear to deal with.
This seems like such a dark place and the darkness reaches into so many parts of my life.
Tags: Art Community, Cancer, Debt, Fail, Failing Poems, Failure, Rethink