My first year in fear

You have to understand that suffering does not make better art. Suffering - whether physical or mental pain - makes work difficult or impossible. I hate to spend any more time on suffering than what it already takes up - I hate to write or talk or make art about it.

What makes better art? Not talent. Talent makes good (great) art possible. Practice makes better art. In fact, when it comes to art, maybe even life, I think stubbornness trumps talent every time.

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I remember I used to approach things with a sort of fearlessness. I have a Christian Boltanski quote about artist fear: 'I'm always a beginner, and the most important thing is always the next piece. We artists never know if we can do it again. You have done something - and most of the time I hate what I have done a few years ago - and you don't know if you can do something now. The good artists are usually the very young or the very old. The ones who are very young are so stupid that they have no fear. And when they are very old they aren't afraid any more. In the meantime, you are always, always, afraid.'

The thing about fearlessness is that you're not being particularly brave, it's just that it never occurs to you that you'll never NOT be able to make anything. Until recently, I thought I could go on producing things forever until the day I died - at a pace only hampered by physical limitations. I'd get tired - of myself, of what I did - but never scared.

This is my first year living with fear. It's like going to sleep in your own bed and waking up in someone else's house where everything feels strange and unsure. I remember meeting A.C. for the first time on the steps of a gallery I used to work in. I'd heard all about him - talented, sensitive, success at a young age - and then, a breakdown. We didn't speak for very long, but I really liked his eyes, even though they looked a bit wild.

When you go over the edge, you're never the same again. You can recover, maybe become older and wiser, but you can't go back to who you were. Sometimes you regret it terribly, because it's all you want to do - to go back and begin again before all that wasted time and energy. But I've met some people who come back and they live in their own skin again, whole and complete. There's never a guarantee.

Whatever it is, you have to try and make sure that you don't let yourself go over the edge, ok?

Updates

I'm working on a moon. A paper moon, to be exact.

I'm reading Seeing by Jose Saramago.

I'm listening to a house filled with music. The oldies have a huge reunion going on and our living room is overflowing with old bandmates. It warms the cockles of my heart to hear them rehearsing for a performance. It makes me think - of a dream that everyone has, some destination you've always had in your head, which you'll have until you lay down to rest for the last time... and everything depends how near or far you are to that destination at the end.

Also, you know, our parents really did have better music.

I'm wearing my silk shirt with a big ribbon bow at the neck (Z.: 'It keeps getting bigger!'), and new short short hair.

I'm visiting these two sites: Tongue In Chic for clothes and Muxtape.com for music.

I need

a holiday

Medley

Haven't felt like posting here too much lately. Lots of shit going down in my universe; it's a regular cosmic storm and I'm waiting for the planets to align themselves again. A few fleeting impressions:

The weather has been unaccountably pleasant recently. Someone attributed it to less drivers on the road due to the recent fuel price hike. Oh B., love your optimism darling, but it will take more than a few lousy Ringgit to prise Malaysians away from their vehicles of mass destruction (I know because I'm one of them). So I have been waking up to balmy, windy mornings and watching pretty evenings dissolve into night. It's lovely, but I've always found that good weather mocks my less than happy disposition.

'If you know about life, you hang on tight and don't let go'. Can't remember where I read that, but it's stuck somehow.

The wonderful Edward Winkleman has posted about confronting that squirm-in-your-pants awkward can't-remember-your-name situation. It is so nice to and reassuring to know that even seasoned, suave gallerists are human too! The sweetest part is that his partner Bambino jumps in to save him when he notices that Ed is in trouble! Yes, having a partner like that puts social faux pas into perspective - what's a little embarrassment when you know someone's always got your back.

'And he knew he would love her until the very last syllable of recorded time'. '...the very last syllable of recorded time' - in the whole of Patrick O'Brian's 16 volume opus I think that phrase stands out as a true gem. What does 'forever' mean to you?

I have a theory. Here it is: that people who come from broken families have very intense and skewed views on love and life. In my experience, I can tell pretty much instantly if someone is like me. They're often likeable, proud, willing to please, secretive and stubborn. Sometimes things like trust and loyalty feel like a matter of life and death to me, and there are subtle divisions and demarcations of honour and love that seem to be of such inflated importance as to seem pathological. As the years go by, you realize your parents are only human - flawed beings who did the best they could from what they had. From there, you have to decide to move on, or perpetuate destructive cycles which go back only Buddha knows how long. Sometimes you swing so wildly in the opposite direction - you want to try so very hard to overcome some perceived flaw or wrong, to convince yourself you are not, will not, will never be like them. If you are beautiful, if you are intelligent, successful, charming and friendly and loyal and nice then perhaps you can make it better. But no, only love can make whole the various hurts that the absence of love has caused. Unfortunately people who are unhappy never believe they deserve anything they haven't worked hard for.

So go give any control freaks you know a hug today. It's only a defense mechanism, they often can't help it.

That's why I love my work so much, too much. Because it loves me back exactly the same amount. It is mathematical, reliable 'until the very last syllable of recorded time'. So much of my ego is invested in it, that when I can't work I feel like I am dying.

I remember something D. said to me once: 'It's not your fault'. Devastated, there was only one other conclusion for me: 'Then it must be yours'.

Ah, hmmm. Anyways.

To me, art is...

First of all, clearing a space for a studio.

And then you might let it sit idle for a long time, because you can't bear to go into a room that's made specially for work, and see it so completely bare.

Because, what if... you never make anything again?

Then one day you'll go there and maybe there will be things to do and maybe there won't.

Right now, there's nothing to do. So I'm waiting. Sticking things up on the wall, curling up like a rodent on the floor, feeling somewhat like a hedgehog - prickly on the outside, raw and squishy on the inside.

The sun glints off the solar panel of my neighbour's roof, grey clouds overhead. I am tired of running all over the place chasing ideas, so I am going to sit here and wait.

Listening to: Fela Kuti, Shuffering and Smiling
'I want you all to please take your minds out of these music contraptions
and put your minds into any goddamn church, any goddamn mosque...'

What I'd like

For the seas
I'd like a ship
old, but weatherly
with two eyes
always looking outward

Shorebound
I'd like a circus tent
colourful, but shabby
with a noble blue pennant
calling me home under the evening sky

For love
I'd like a sturdy rope
in steady hands
long enough for every journey
strong enough at each return

For the future
I'd like a another day
lengthy, but fruitful
and a chance
to see you again

For now
I'd like a prayer
Silent, colourless and weightless
for all these things
I think I'd like
I think I'd need
To live the life I want

For Z.