You will try a bunch of stuff and most of
it is not going to work out. And the
stuff that does work out, most likely, no one is really going to notice, or
even care. And at first, that’s really discouraging,
but then you learn to accept it because you love what you are doing and you care, so you keep going and you keep
experimenting because what you love most is the discovery of “What can I do with this?” and “How can I
express this old idea in a new way?” and "What happens when I put that next to this?" And sometimes, you get on a roll and you have
this incredible momentum of thoughts and ideas and production and at that point,
the most poisonous thing is the fantasies that rise, of being discovered, of
being celebrated, of being known for your work.
Because inevitably, you get a call from your parents who tell you that
your recent stuff has taken a turn for the worse and that they find it depressing and
that they know you are losing your audience and that they are afraid that you are losing
your mind and that they wish you would focus on one thing like those cute bird
cartoons you used to do. “Everyone liked
those,” they remind you. And even though
you know they love you and want the best for you and even though you want them
to be honest, right?, you can’t help but feel wronged, right here in the same
spot where you feel the unfettered waves of energy pouring forth when you are the most inspired, the spot that now calcifies into a hard little pit because
you are afraid they might be right. Maybe you are a fool. Maybe you are losing your mind. Maybe everyone is shaking their heads and
saying, “What a pity that she isn’t doing those cute bird cartoons
anymore.” Maybe you even cry. But then you remember that your father-in-law
told you, just the other night how much he likes what you are doing and to keep
it up, so you send him an email thanking him for being appreciative, and “by
the way, thanks for the wild turkey,” the one he cut from a poster and sent to
the kids, the one he was worried was lost in the mail. “It got here,” you write, “but strangely
without a postmark, instead, across the two stamps. . . .” And just then, as
you are about to describe how across the two stamps, American flags both, one
saying “Liberty,” the other “Freedom,” that across those, someone had scribbled
a black wavy line as if saying, “No.” And because you practice everyday, your
mind is agile and makes a connection to the turkey your father-in-law sent in
the envelope with those stamps and that little hard pit you felt when your
parents told you that you are not living up to their expectations, dissolves into a vision, a collage, a commentary on the state of America, with the wild
turkey speaking those stamps and all around a ridiculous array of products that
we are constantly being force fed Free Shipping 50% Off Entertaining Essentials
and you grab a scissors and dig through the recycling for those catalogs – the
incessant stream of advertising that lands in your mailbox everyday and makes
you mad, but today makes you glad because you are going to take them and
rearrange them into a piece of art that you feel passionate about, that you
care about because that is the real work of an artist, not becoming famous, not
winning awards, not pleasing your parents or anyone else for that matter,
except you. So, always remember, keep
practicing and listen to your first cousin when he says, “While it’s kind of
deflating because they’re our parents and we really want them to like and
support what we do, we can’t let that stop us from doing what we’re passionate
about. So I say, keep posting existentialist
poems juxtaposed with severed rabbit heads, dammit!”
