Work or Play?
Various other methods of trying to wake me up from a nap having failed, Scott started reading me the "art" section from an anthology of quotations. Well, that worked eventually, and was more humane than applying cold water or an infuriated cat.
Proving that art is never a "finished product" and that the demands of eternal revision cut across the disciplines:
"Once in a museum Bonnard persuaded his friend Vuillard to distract an attendant while he approached his own old painting, slipped from his pocket a tiny box of paints and a brush the size of a toothpick and added to one of his consecrated canvasses minute touches that set his mind at rest." -- Annette Vaillant
Another quote was by some writer I've never heard of, saying basically that artists shouldn't call what they do "art". By definition, if you're an artist, everything you produce is "art"; it should be referred to as "work". Which got me thinking about the concept of writing as "work", as opposed to something you might do strictly for pleasure or relaxation.
A lot of people say, "I love to write" or "I enjoy writing". I'm not sure that I do. Feeling the initial spark for a piece is great, and I often commit the cardinal sin of falling in love with one of my own metaphors or the sound of a line, etc. But enjoy the process, not so much. It is work, sometimes very frustrating work, as my reach exceeds my grasp and I often see that original spark fizzling out on the page. And then there's the obsessive process of revision. Even when I've gotten a poem as far as I can take it, the ensuing relief of accomplishment is frequently accompanied by the phenomenon I call "post-poem depression", where all seems "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable".
Why, then? I guess because I do desire the satisfaction of creating something from nothing, like successfully assembling a 1,000 piece puzzle when you've lost the lid to the box and don't know at the beginning whether it's supposed to be a calico kitten or the Space Needle. Even if it has all been mostly said before, poetry still feels like a natural and almost necessary way to engage the world.
Proving that art is never a "finished product" and that the demands of eternal revision cut across the disciplines:
"Once in a museum Bonnard persuaded his friend Vuillard to distract an attendant while he approached his own old painting, slipped from his pocket a tiny box of paints and a brush the size of a toothpick and added to one of his consecrated canvasses minute touches that set his mind at rest." -- Annette Vaillant
Another quote was by some writer I've never heard of, saying basically that artists shouldn't call what they do "art". By definition, if you're an artist, everything you produce is "art"; it should be referred to as "work". Which got me thinking about the concept of writing as "work", as opposed to something you might do strictly for pleasure or relaxation.
A lot of people say, "I love to write" or "I enjoy writing". I'm not sure that I do. Feeling the initial spark for a piece is great, and I often commit the cardinal sin of falling in love with one of my own metaphors or the sound of a line, etc. But enjoy the process, not so much. It is work, sometimes very frustrating work, as my reach exceeds my grasp and I often see that original spark fizzling out on the page. And then there's the obsessive process of revision. Even when I've gotten a poem as far as I can take it, the ensuing relief of accomplishment is frequently accompanied by the phenomenon I call "post-poem depression", where all seems "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable".
Why, then? I guess because I do desire the satisfaction of creating something from nothing, like successfully assembling a 1,000 piece puzzle when you've lost the lid to the box and don't know at the beginning whether it's supposed to be a calico kitten or the Space Needle. Even if it has all been mostly said before, poetry still feels like a natural and almost necessary way to engage the world.
posted by Jennifer at 10:32 PM
2 Comments:
"I hate writing but I love having written" (attributed to many people, most notably Dorothy Parker).
To agree with you: I describe poetry (especially the kind I try to write) as extrapolating the extraordinary from the ordinary. It's a great buzz when it's accomplished, but when you're in progress, and it's still spilled milk, or a smashed fender, or a broken mailbox, and not (yet?) a universal insight, it can be exruciating.
But at least for me, since poetry does let you say or find extraordinary things, it is abslutely necessary.
(PS: Came here via Kelli Russell Agodon and will be back often!)
Very nice to meet you, David. Whoever said it, that quote just about sums things up (would that I could be that succinct). I liked your moon piece in Branches; I remember reading it a few months ago.
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