Saturday, June 22, 2019
I get no emails. No press orders. No comments. Only one Facebook “friend” request.
Is this what’s it’s like to die in obscurity – a phrase sometimes found in the
annals of art history when an artist or poet, writer or other creative,
inventive, discovering and imaginative individual passes?
Or is it, as prefer to think, my mysterious muse’ way of protecting me from
entanglements with the distractions that emails, press order and comments on
Facebook are to my real tasks of being creative, inventive, discovering and
imaginative – in all, a producer of valuable things.
“Be gone, dull care” comes to mind. What? It turns out to be a title of “an extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and
Norman McLaren painted colors, shapes, and transformations directly on to their
filmstrip. The result is a vivid interpretation, in fluid lines and color, of
jazz music played by the Oscar Peterson Trio.”
Something my muse dredged up out of my past,
a film from the 1960s when I was a junior in college and Ron Carraher was bringing
film to my attention. It was like the time Carl Chew and I were playing with
video feedback and made the video, “My Father’s Farm from the Moon.”
“So,’ as Elmer Gates said on his deathbed, “this
is how it has to be.” Whatever happened to Bill Ritchie and Carl Chew?
“Be gone, dull care.” What did they have in
mind when they titled their film? What did Carl Chew and I have in mind?
Stories I’d like to tell and, thanks to my freedom, I’m able to tell in my
autobiography.
My stories are too long to tell in this age
of sound bites and stampedes of people running over cliffs, fearing anything creative,
inventive, newly rediscovered and imaginative which has not been vetted to fit
on a “smart” phone.
The day after Carl sent me the advice I
asked for regarding my Artistscrip idea, I checked out the title of his recommended
reading: The art of selling altruism. But it was like the story of the yellow
scarf tied ‘round the trees – there were too many books like that. I’m waiting for
him to tell me which one to read.
In the meantime, I read one about partnerships
for altruism[i],
thinking of my strategic alliance with Rewana Nduchwa – my friend from Botswana
– whose Kalahari Honey project is my current model. Reading the article, I felt
like I could copy-write over it and insert Carl’s and my names into it and come
up with a plan to, as I believe it can be done, sell off our legacy for the benefit
of our chosen altruistic efforts.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment