More than half way through Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, I decided to start recording the songs mentioned in this book. Then I barely started filling in the first half.
p3 Janacek- Sinfonietta
p12 Billy Jean (Michael Jackson)
p463 It's Only a Paper Moon
p491 1960's Japanese Folk Songs
p507 Chantez les Bas- Louis Armstrong
p522 Mother's Little Helper- the Rolling Stones
p522 Lady Jane- the Rolling Stones
p523 Little Red Rooster- the Rolling Stones
p534 Brahms Symphony, Schumann piano, Bach keyboard or religious music
p560 Home on the Range
p570 Thomas Crown Affair Soundtrack- Michel Legrand
p733 Sibelius Concerto- David Oistrakh
p811 "Look up at the night sky/ see all the little stars" (pop song) Kyu Sakamotu
The first half of a 1Q84 playlist has already been assembled by booktunes
This is where I mull over ideas about art. To see what I've been making, please visit my artist's website: http://lydiaprentiss.com
Monday, December 19, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Republican Presidential Candidates
Having Rick Santorum actually run for president seems suspicious. I mean, if it wasn't for the Sarah Palin debacle, I'd think this was a clever plot to attempt to make the other Republican candidates look good. I don't know whether to laugh or be very afraid. Jimmy McMillan is also a republican candidate. Enough said.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Philip Guston, recovered modernist- iconography and meaning in "fine" art.
I was talking to my buddy Clay on the phone today. He's a comic book artist- and ironically I've been unable to make time to visit him in his new studio at the Pyramid Atlantic because I need to stay home and read for my comic book class. Yesterday we had a phone conversation where I brought up the idea of perceived ethnicity in comics and the ways that discussing that in class sometimes makes me feel uncomfortable. Today I was telling him about our upcoming visit to the National Gallery. Clay wondered whether we'd be looking for Warhol and Lichtenstein paintings (something that seemed a bit obvious to me)... and he wondered aloud who else might be featured in there with art that somehow relates to comics. Philip Guston popped into my head. Guston's abstract expressionist work was quite popular in NYC galleries until he moved away from non-representational work and started making paintings with iconographic imagery. The representational things in his paintings are made in a "cartoon" style- and often include klansmen, boots and cigarette butts.
Clay wasn't familiar with Guston's work- but thought it was strange that someone who's generally pretty sensitive to (but not always correct about) issues surrounding discussions of racism and ethnicity- would be talking about an artist who painted klansmen. From what I knew of his work- it was never really clear what the klansmen were supposed to mean. They just existed as icons that weren't ever clearly defined.
So while we chatted on the phone (I'm procrastinating- not finishing the new Hatfield article yet), we both googled Guston and read the Wikipedia page. Clay felt that Guston's work looked a lot like R. Crumb's comics. He read a bit more about Guston's background- how he started a socialist group at one point- something that involved Jackson Pollock getting kicked out of school. Anyway- once Clay felt content that at least Guston was coming from a left-leaning point of view (Clay's own political views are sometimes even more radically fringe left than my own)... he was happy to learn about a new artist who painted in a comic-influenced style.
Looking back at Guston's work reminded me of why I took this course in the first place. Guston's paintings are now widely respected. There was even a (very small) retrospective of his work in the East Wing of the National Gallery a few years ago. When I was a painting major- even my "modernist" instructors who felt uncomfortable with my experiments with "bad painting" and infusing meaning in my work- all respected Guston's paintings for the the way he applied his paint (thick and goey) and the way that his work suggested meaning without actually spelling anything out. I guess he really found a way to "come back" from modernism and non-representational art- even if his work was unpopular at first. I think McCloud might place his images towards the 'meaning' end of his pyramid (see my last blogpost or actually see Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics") just on the other end of the line from language because of the iconography- and maybe a bit north towards abstraction not only because of the way that things looked (not like actual realistic life) but because the visual language that Guston presents doesn't have a straightforward easily decipherable meaning. Patrick Craig, an art professor at UMD says that this is the difference between "fine art" and illustration: illustration supports or illuminates a specific pre-defined idea, while fine art should ask more questions than it answers. I'm not sure whether that's necessarily true and I think there's sometimes danger in that. I believe that the notion that fine art should be difficult to understand is a holdover from conceptual art. It smacks a bit of elitism (it's not "art" unless regular people don't understand it) and also opens the door to lazy thinking from artists. Arts could be lulled into thinking that it's ok to simply paint pretty (or not so pretty) yet uninformed pictures or artfully arrange some junk in a gallery without necessarily thinking very hard. However- I do accept that art often requires the viewer to complete some complicated tasks of closure- to borrow a term from Gestalt psychology that we've adopted for use in discussing comics.
Anyway- I probably spend much too much time pondering questions- and should spend a lot more time just making art. Perhaps if it really looked good- and people actually wanted to buy my work or show my work... then all these questions wouldn't vex me so.
So while we chatted on the phone (I'm procrastinating- not finishing the new Hatfield article yet), we both googled Guston and read the Wikipedia page. Clay felt that Guston's work looked a lot like R. Crumb's comics. He read a bit more about Guston's background- how he started a socialist group at one point- something that involved Jackson Pollock getting kicked out of school. Anyway- once Clay felt content that at least Guston was coming from a left-leaning point of view (Clay's own political views are sometimes even more radically fringe left than my own)... he was happy to learn about a new artist who painted in a comic-influenced style.
Looking back at Guston's work reminded me of why I took this course in the first place. Guston's paintings are now widely respected. There was even a (very small) retrospective of his work in the East Wing of the National Gallery a few years ago. When I was a painting major- even my "modernist" instructors who felt uncomfortable with my experiments with "bad painting" and infusing meaning in my work- all respected Guston's paintings for the the way he applied his paint (thick and goey) and the way that his work suggested meaning without actually spelling anything out. I guess he really found a way to "come back" from modernism and non-representational art- even if his work was unpopular at first. I think McCloud might place his images towards the 'meaning' end of his pyramid (see my last blogpost or actually see Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics") just on the other end of the line from language because of the iconography- and maybe a bit north towards abstraction not only because of the way that things looked (not like actual realistic life) but because the visual language that Guston presents doesn't have a straightforward easily decipherable meaning. Patrick Craig, an art professor at UMD says that this is the difference between "fine art" and illustration: illustration supports or illuminates a specific pre-defined idea, while fine art should ask more questions than it answers. I'm not sure whether that's necessarily true and I think there's sometimes danger in that. I believe that the notion that fine art should be difficult to understand is a holdover from conceptual art. It smacks a bit of elitism (it's not "art" unless regular people don't understand it) and also opens the door to lazy thinking from artists. Arts could be lulled into thinking that it's ok to simply paint pretty (or not so pretty) yet uninformed pictures or artfully arrange some junk in a gallery without necessarily thinking very hard. However- I do accept that art often requires the viewer to complete some complicated tasks of closure- to borrow a term from Gestalt psychology that we've adopted for use in discussing comics.
Anyway- I probably spend much too much time pondering questions- and should spend a lot more time just making art. Perhaps if it really looked good- and people actually wanted to buy my work or show my work... then all these questions wouldn't vex me so.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
imagery, iconography and nonlinear narratives
I've struggled with many years with questions relating to meaning and symbol in art. Like the post-impressionists and expressionists at the turn of the last century worked against Academy Art and the idea of painting as illusion and presentation of a perfect ideal- artists today are emerging from the previous ideal of cool- cold- strictly aesthetic art to bring back meaning and emotion.
Reading "Understanding Comics" for my Comic Book Art History class has given me more to think about as far as how the image as presented by the artist conveys representational information as well as iconic imagery. David McCloud created this terrific chart to illustrate the way that comic book artists and writers fall along the spectrum with "Reality" (or representational accuracy) at one corner- "Meaning" (language) at the other corner... with the "Picture Plane" (or abstraction) at the top.
Betty Edwards' 1979 book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain focuses on these questions as well. By understanding the ways that our mind processes visual vs sequential information, we can effectively switch gears and draw with amazingly accuracy. I love to draw realistically- but accurate rendering isn't the whole story. McCloud's Understanding Comics made me realize why I find journaling so satisfying: it's the interplay between image and meaning that turns me on.
I'm probably one of the most "schooled" person you'll ever meet. I haven't attended the best schools- and I certainly haven't always been the best student- and I've far surpassed the point of diminishing returns in my education (especially if you account for my crippling student loan debt)... but up until now, I've never really been able to find any thing in academia that has really been able to help answer this question related to my own particular struggle between "meaning" and "artistry."
I find myself wondering if the reason I struggle, is that I limit each art piece to an individual image. Comics use a sequence of images to create a sense of time. With passing time, you can more easily create a narrative. But do I really need a narrative to create a sense of meaning?
Here are two artists who are using images and text and meaning in a particularly interesting way:
Jakub Julian Ziolkowski
Art in America article which describes "recurring characters sourced from the deepest recesses of his imagination who interact in non-linear and disjointed narratives"
SEE? THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!
An artist friend of my mom, Gregg Coffey posted the art of Dragan Vuk Racic on facebook the other day:
Again- we seen an interesting play between image and words- charts and drawings- meaning and expression combined really successfully with more formal aspects like color, line, form and texture.
I registered for an art course once at Purchase, "Painting and Writing" and was disappointed that the class never once actually combined painting and writing in a single piece. When I suggested it, my painting teacher scoffed. No- one week we'd paint, and one week we'd write. I actually wrote a poem I was pretty proud of- on memory and the mis-remembered, and interpretation and misinterpretation- but the class never got writing into my painting in the way that I wanted because our teacher firmly believed that art should not involve any sort of narrative or meaning- linear or otherwise. She once said, "a dog will look at a picture of a dog because it's a dog." I don't know what else she said about that because it stopped being relevant to me. For the rest of my time at Purchase, I sought out printmaking professors to advise me on my painting. They were a lot more open to my kind of art.
Reading "Understanding Comics" for my Comic Book Art History class has given me more to think about as far as how the image as presented by the artist conveys representational information as well as iconic imagery. David McCloud created this terrific chart to illustrate the way that comic book artists and writers fall along the spectrum with "Reality" (or representational accuracy) at one corner- "Meaning" (language) at the other corner... with the "Picture Plane" (or abstraction) at the top.
Betty Edwards' 1979 book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain focuses on these questions as well. By understanding the ways that our mind processes visual vs sequential information, we can effectively switch gears and draw with amazingly accuracy. I love to draw realistically- but accurate rendering isn't the whole story. McCloud's Understanding Comics made me realize why I find journaling so satisfying: it's the interplay between image and meaning that turns me on.
I'm probably one of the most "schooled" person you'll ever meet. I haven't attended the best schools- and I certainly haven't always been the best student- and I've far surpassed the point of diminishing returns in my education (especially if you account for my crippling student loan debt)... but up until now, I've never really been able to find any thing in academia that has really been able to help answer this question related to my own particular struggle between "meaning" and "artistry."
I find myself wondering if the reason I struggle, is that I limit each art piece to an individual image. Comics use a sequence of images to create a sense of time. With passing time, you can more easily create a narrative. But do I really need a narrative to create a sense of meaning?
Here are two artists who are using images and text and meaning in a particularly interesting way:
Jakub Julian Ziolkowski
SEE? THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!
An artist friend of my mom, Gregg Coffey posted the art of Dragan Vuk Racic on facebook the other day:
Again- we seen an interesting play between image and words- charts and drawings- meaning and expression combined really successfully with more formal aspects like color, line, form and texture.
I registered for an art course once at Purchase, "Painting and Writing" and was disappointed that the class never once actually combined painting and writing in a single piece. When I suggested it, my painting teacher scoffed. No- one week we'd paint, and one week we'd write. I actually wrote a poem I was pretty proud of- on memory and the mis-remembered, and interpretation and misinterpretation- but the class never got writing into my painting in the way that I wanted because our teacher firmly believed that art should not involve any sort of narrative or meaning- linear or otherwise. She once said, "a dog will look at a picture of a dog because it's a dog." I don't know what else she said about that because it stopped being relevant to me. For the rest of my time at Purchase, I sought out printmaking professors to advise me on my painting. They were a lot more open to my kind of art.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Sequential Art
I'm taking a class on comics that started this week. Yesterday in class, we discussed the various definitions of "comics."
David Kunzle, The Early Comic Strip, 1973: “A sequence of separate images” with “a preponderance of image over text” that appears (and was originally intended to appear) in “a mass medium” and tells “a story which is both moral and topical.”
Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art, 1985: “Sequential art”
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics, 1993: “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”
David Carrier, The Aesthetics of Comics, 2000: A comic has three essential features: “the speech balloon, the closely linked narrative, and the book-size scale.”
Greg Hayman and Henry John Pratt, “What Are Comics?”, 2005: “x is a comic iff x is a sequence of discrete, juxtaposed pictures that comprise a narrative, either in their own right or when combined with text.”
I think Will Eisner's short and simple definition works the best- but I think it's interesting that McCloud talks about the intent: aesthetic and/or informative. That's a significant different. Fine Art- supposedly- is purely aesthetic. Crafts tend to be functional. Comics can be either or both.
While my own journals tend to employ devices seen in comics- specifically the speech bubble- my images definitely don't have a specific sequential aspect. They don't follow a narrative other than the broad narrative that is my life story. Each image addresses a "day in the life"- and while themes emerge, and images and characters repeat- there's no specific sequential progression.
I think this class will be useful in a couple of ways. I'd like to be exposed to new comic artists. Also, I'm interested in the way that comics merge the written word and visual images and would like to incorporate new techniques and directions in my own art.
Would I consider making my own art "more sequential?"--- I think it could be an interesting exercise. I'm already drawn to art that tells a story- and I think that comics do it quite effectively. I was taught that art shouldn't attempt to tell a story- that it's purely an aesthetic experience. I've always resisted that school of thought. Some of my favorite artists tell stories with their art: Henry Darger, David Wojnarowicz, William Wiley... There are beautiful exceptions to every rule.
David Kunzle, The Early Comic Strip, 1973: “A sequence of separate images” with “a preponderance of image over text” that appears (and was originally intended to appear) in “a mass medium” and tells “a story which is both moral and topical.”
Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art, 1985: “Sequential art”
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics, 1993: “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”
David Carrier, The Aesthetics of Comics, 2000: A comic has three essential features: “the speech balloon, the closely linked narrative, and the book-size scale.”
Greg Hayman and Henry John Pratt, “What Are Comics?”, 2005: “x is a comic iff x is a sequence of discrete, juxtaposed pictures that comprise a narrative, either in their own right or when combined with text.”
I think Will Eisner's short and simple definition works the best- but I think it's interesting that McCloud talks about the intent: aesthetic and/or informative. That's a significant different. Fine Art- supposedly- is purely aesthetic. Crafts tend to be functional. Comics can be either or both.
While my own journals tend to employ devices seen in comics- specifically the speech bubble- my images definitely don't have a specific sequential aspect. They don't follow a narrative other than the broad narrative that is my life story. Each image addresses a "day in the life"- and while themes emerge, and images and characters repeat- there's no specific sequential progression.
I think this class will be useful in a couple of ways. I'd like to be exposed to new comic artists. Also, I'm interested in the way that comics merge the written word and visual images and would like to incorporate new techniques and directions in my own art.
Would I consider making my own art "more sequential?"--- I think it could be an interesting exercise. I'm already drawn to art that tells a story- and I think that comics do it quite effectively. I was taught that art shouldn't attempt to tell a story- that it's purely an aesthetic experience. I've always resisted that school of thought. Some of my favorite artists tell stories with their art: Henry Darger, David Wojnarowicz, William Wiley... There are beautiful exceptions to every rule.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Some new mixed media paintings- and a bit about their meaning.
The first two small paintings were finished last weekend. I'm exploring new materials like layering tracing paper, gold paper, putty, and a variety of clear acrylic glosses and matte gesso to create texture and luminescence. The Gun Lady, the Baby, and Bottom Boy are familiar iconic characters that appear repeatedly in my work. The first two photos are a little washed out with some glare since I used my camera phone to take these pictures.
The Gun Lady was based on an old crime novel cover. I'm attracted to the idea of the "Dangerous Woman." Violence perpetrated by women is unusual- and when it does happen, society reacts much more strongly than when violence is perpetrated by a man.
A ghostly figure of a baby hovers in the background of this image. The woman is not aiming the gun at the baby- but this is somewhat ambiguous. Can a woman who uses violence to protect her child also nurture that child? Or does she become a threat to the baby as well? The gun aligns with the baby's genital area, a nod to the post-freudian feminist association of the phallus as a symbol of power, or possibly the sexist notion of the castrating woman.
The donkey head on this character references Shakespeare's Mid-Summer Night's Dream. In that play, Bottom, a laborer, is turned into a donkey by Puck, a court jester. Titania, the fairy queen falls under a spell and loves the Ass Bottom. The fairy king, Oberon, takes this opportunity to steal the changeling child under her care. A woman can lose her senses as well as her child when under a spell of foolish love.
I use anatomical illustrations when I am concerned about the health of someone I love. I began this drawing, and the water color painting below, after my son, Matthew, was hospitalized for a burst appendix last February.
In that sense- this character is not sismply a representation of the object of foolish love, nor just a representation of my concern for an ailing loved one- but an amalgamation of the two.
The Gun Lady was based on an old crime novel cover. I'm attracted to the idea of the "Dangerous Woman." Violence perpetrated by women is unusual- and when it does happen, society reacts much more strongly than when violence is perpetrated by a man.
A ghostly figure of a baby hovers in the background of this image. The woman is not aiming the gun at the baby- but this is somewhat ambiguous. Can a woman who uses violence to protect her child also nurture that child? Or does she become a threat to the baby as well? The gun aligns with the baby's genital area, a nod to the post-freudian feminist association of the phallus as a symbol of power, or possibly the sexist notion of the castrating woman.
The donkey head on this character references Shakespeare's Mid-Summer Night's Dream. In that play, Bottom, a laborer, is turned into a donkey by Puck, a court jester. Titania, the fairy queen falls under a spell and loves the Ass Bottom. The fairy king, Oberon, takes this opportunity to steal the changeling child under her care. A woman can lose her senses as well as her child when under a spell of foolish love.
I use anatomical illustrations when I am concerned about the health of someone I love. I began this drawing, and the water color painting below, after my son, Matthew, was hospitalized for a burst appendix last February.
In that sense- this character is not sismply a representation of the object of foolish love, nor just a representation of my concern for an ailing loved one- but an amalgamation of the two.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
When Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, a livejournal friend posted a video clip very similar to this one. It was edited differently, and I think it included her saying something about expecting to receive a lot of letters from people requesting money- but the artichoke still played a prominent role in the video clip. I think that's what I initially liked about her. Or maybe it was that she was so cranky and real.
Her book, the Golden Notebook, was published in 1962 about a writer who keeps four notebooks- different colors for different (compartmentalized?) parts of her life. The Golden Notebook brings them all together. I found this interesting because of my own art journal notebooks- and the way that my own life is compartmentalized. What if I could find a way to reconcile all the seemingly divergent aspects of my life- bring them together into one transcendental harmonious masterpiece?
It's a thick book- over 600 pages and it's non-linear. It bounces back and forth between different notebooks and different time periods. The book goes into detail about the hero and her friend, 'Free Women': two single mothers. One who is a writer and the other who is an actress. They have lovers and ex-lovers, talk about their complicated feelings about the communist party (they are members or ex-members), they talk about their psychoanalysis. I feel like I know this kind of woman, am this kind of woman, have had this kind of friendship.
But after four years I STILL haven't finished reading it. I feel ashamed of this- but part of me is glad that I'm not yet done with this. Several years ago I discovered Carson McCullers after seeing an incredible photographic portrait of her at a museum. In that photo she bore a remarkable resemblance to a good friend of mine- and that was enough to make me want to learn more. She wrote really wonderful short novels that take place in the American South in the early 20th Century. Within a month I had read a few and I haven't thought of her much since.
The Golden Notebook still won't be discarded so easily. It lives next to my bed. One day maybe I'll complete it. Just like perhaps one day I'll find a way to make my own art function in harmony with the rest of my life. Right now these two things (making art and keeping a roof over my head) seem to be working at cross-purposes.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
in which Lydia considers making a zine and ponders weighty questions
I've been thinking about creating a zine. I know, I'm like 20 years late on that. But maybe it's never too late- really. It's strange that I've never done this before. My journals already include text and pictures, and most of my very favorite artists are actually illustrators. But I seem to have some kind of block when it comes to creating a narrative. Sure- writing is- by nature- sequential. Language is sequential. You start somewhere- and go somewhere. Not like a picture where it's all there in one shot. Two halves of our brains process this different kind of information differently. Even journals- even blogs- are sequential. But the idea of creating a zine stresses me out- I think because I feel that there needs to be a beginning, middle and an end- and wrapping up a structured story seems so limiting and final. Or maybe it just seems too difficult. Maybe because I'm just not good at the planning-out-in-advance part. When I write- I have only the vaguest notion about where things might lead--- and maybe it was those middle-school writing teachers that told us to write like a hero sandwich- with the whole thing mapped out in advance- that made me think I couldn't write- didn't want to write- because they killed all the fun in it. Or maybe my lazy brain would just prefer to come up with reasons why *not* to do something challenging and new and- if I'm honest- a little bit scary- than to actually just go ahead and do the damned thing. But I know that these worries are silly too- because a zine is just a zine! I could poop on a piece of paper and make 100 photocopies and fold it up and sell it and it would be ok.
There's also a part of me that resists combining art and literary things because they're (ahem) "illustrative"- like that's a dirty word or something. I actively fight against the training in "fine art" which I've received- that taught me these notions of hierarchy- what is "fine"??? Fine art is in galleries and museums. Other kinds of art like advertising, comics, book illustration, graffiti are not really art at all. It's a really old-fashioned way of looking at things- and mostly anyone now will recognize the important role that comics, advertising, illustration and graffiti play in fine arts. I mean- where would art be without pop art? 20th Century artists like Lichtenstein, Warhol and Basquiat turned "fine art" upside down and expanded our definition of art. Feminist artists like Faith Ringold brought fabric art and "woman's art" and "crafts" to the galleries. Post-modernism brought the margins further into the center- expanding our definition of art to include art made by self-taught artists, art by disabled individuals, "outsider art"- Even conservative artists in academia recognize that today- but when I was in school in the 90's... when I was growing up in the 80's... this wasn't yet taken for granted. Pop artists were seen as the exception- the rules hadn't yet been re-written. And I think there are still lingering old-fashioned notions of this hierarchy hanging around- like cobwebs in the corners. Some rooms are dustier than others.
So even though I've always really been drawn to illustration- especially graphic novels and illustrated children's books, I've been taught that the "Fine Art" doesn't illustrate. Art shouldn't spell things out. It shouldn't knock you over the head with a message. Meaning- if there is any at all- should be veiled and vague. Maybe there's some merit to that. I mean- that's the way art is- isn't it? Look at William Wiley's art- a guy who breaks so many rules already- but those really large paintings filled with writing that look like they came out of one of my journals It hint at symbols and stories but nothing is totally clear. Maybe that's some kind of dada tradition: the notion that art's supposed to confuse you- or at least to ask more questions than it answers. But often I feel like there's an element of the Emperor's New Clothes in this whole thing.
When I was in college, I knew something was "conceptual art" when I honestly had no idea what the fuck I was looking at. Maybe people in the art community want to keep the rest of the world wondering. If it's too clear- too easy- then artists' aren't doing it right. What's the point of being in an absurd profession if other people actually understand what it is that you're doing?
It's not that I think that art must (always) be accessible and clear. Most great artists are brilliant- and they don't need to make art that's simplistic. There's nothing I love more than looking at a painting and "getting" an artists' little in-joke or reference- especially when I'm sure that I'm the only one in the immediate vicinity who "gets it"= like my own personal easter egg! I also love it when, once in a while, I can put that art degree that I'll probably never pay off- to work by dazzling somebody with a complex explanation about some art historical context for something.
But I guess the thing I struggle with is the limitations that I feel have been placed on me as an artist- and the ways in which certain elements of my art education has had the effect of stifling my creativity and limiting my expression rather than enhancing and expanding it. One might argue (and in fact, I'm SURE I can remember a conversation not-very-long-ago when this argument has been made) that in order to define something, you must, by definition- define what it is NOT. You can't say what "IS" without saying what "ISN'T"- you can't have something in the mix without leaving something out. If you have an unlimited open approach to your definition to art- if anything and absolutely everything is/can be "ART" then in effect- NOTHING IS ART. If you don't define what art IS- in part by saying what art is NOT- then the notion of "Art" ceases to have any meaning at all. And ART means too much to too many people than to let that happen!
Well sure. But a more important question is: who exactly gets to say what art IS and what art ISN'T? Things come into- and fall out of fashion. Our notion of what "Art" is- is always growing and changing. Art will always be- in a large part- about 500 year old paintings- in museums- the old masters and classics. But it will always be (and probably always was) about the sexy new kids with their wild ideas- upending everything and breaking the rules. Because Art is about creativity- and without new ideas- without taking risks- without making things up- things get old- and they cease to be art.
I think the last time I had this conversation, when I rejected a reductionist approach to art while talking with an art professor, the reply I got was something along the lines of- "this is academia- you came to me as the expert- I get to define the terms." I don't think it's too idealistic to expect someone in academia to be open to new ideas! In fact- the whole notion of examining our assumptions- defining and redefining our terms- IS an academic question. If you can't ask these kinds of questions within the halls of academia- where the fuck are you supposed to ask them? We learn and think and examine ideas where? In universities- including (perhaps especially) the things that our professors say. I'm not trying to reject helpful criticism-- I'm just hoping for something more constructive- A little Socratic dialog in my critique... and not something that devolves into "because I'm the teacher and I say so."
I have to note- that while I've disagreed with about 90% of anything this particular professor ever said to me- I've also spent about 4x as much thinking about WHY than I ever spent talking to the man... and that, in itself is SOMETHING valuable- for sure.
OK- some people might say that this whole business of asking "what is art" is about as boring and pointless and hackneyed as staying up all night having a conversation about "what is punk rock?" Well- personally- I never get tired of either- because I've approached both subjects countless times and the outcome has never been the same. OK- I have this sneaky feeling that it's absolutely "uncool" to admit that- and it's "uncool" to care that I said something "uncool" and oh-gasp- I've fallen into the neverending spiral of uncool-self-consciousness... but to me it's like drawing a self portrait, or painting a tree- there are so many unlimited ways to approach it that the process and outcome is different every time.
So getting back to this zine thing--- I think there's a part of me that says that because I've been trained as a "fine artist" (after making a conscious decision to take that path)- that I can't ever use my art for anything useful. Any application of my art into anything productive- make it "not art" and makes me "not an artist." It's like I'm an alchemist- but if I turn my lead into gold- I can't ever spend it- because that would make it "not gold." Or maybe I'm just really afraid that if I tried to spend all this gold that I've been making- I'll discover that is really only yellow lead. If I actually go through with this and make a zine- it'll be stupid- nobody will like it- it won't make any sense- it'll be too obvious- to dumb- too... just too "too". If I don't DO it can't be too TOO- can it?
I also know that making a zine doesn't make me any less of an artist- any more than cooking supper, walking the dog, or making a budget spreadsheet at work makes me any less of an artist. Well- the non-art job thing- that's a HUGE issue for me- something that I need to address in another post at another time. Because sometimes I worry that it DOES make me less of an artist. Or maybe that's exactly the topic that I should choose for my first zine. This obviously won't be the first time that question's been addressed- but (and maybe because I spend 40+ hours a week in an air conditioned office looking at budgets instead of making art and talking with other artists) when I DO read about it- from other artists who write- it causes a huge "a-ha" for me. So yeah- I feel like it's something that I need to work out- but also maybe it's something that folks either don't think about and might appreciate reading about- or DO think about and might appreciate reading about.
Or maybe- if I ever write this goddamned zine- maybe nobody will bother to pick it up and read it at all. And maybe that's ok. I'm sure that won't be the first time THAT has happened. Plenty of great writers go unread- just like plenty of great artists make art that remains unlooked-at. That doesn't stop geographers and musicians from taking photos and make paintings and even pooping on canvas... and that's ok too. It's all art. Or it's not. Who's to say?
There's also a part of me that resists combining art and literary things because they're (ahem) "illustrative"- like that's a dirty word or something. I actively fight against the training in "fine art" which I've received- that taught me these notions of hierarchy- what is "fine"??? Fine art is in galleries and museums. Other kinds of art like advertising, comics, book illustration, graffiti are not really art at all. It's a really old-fashioned way of looking at things- and mostly anyone now will recognize the important role that comics, advertising, illustration and graffiti play in fine arts. I mean- where would art be without pop art? 20th Century artists like Lichtenstein, Warhol and Basquiat turned "fine art" upside down and expanded our definition of art. Feminist artists like Faith Ringold brought fabric art and "woman's art" and "crafts" to the galleries. Post-modernism brought the margins further into the center- expanding our definition of art to include art made by self-taught artists, art by disabled individuals, "outsider art"- Even conservative artists in academia recognize that today- but when I was in school in the 90's... when I was growing up in the 80's... this wasn't yet taken for granted. Pop artists were seen as the exception- the rules hadn't yet been re-written. And I think there are still lingering old-fashioned notions of this hierarchy hanging around- like cobwebs in the corners. Some rooms are dustier than others.
So even though I've always really been drawn to illustration- especially graphic novels and illustrated children's books, I've been taught that the "Fine Art" doesn't illustrate. Art shouldn't spell things out. It shouldn't knock you over the head with a message. Meaning- if there is any at all- should be veiled and vague. Maybe there's some merit to that. I mean- that's the way art is- isn't it? Look at William Wiley's art- a guy who breaks so many rules already- but those really large paintings filled with writing that look like they came out of one of my journals It hint at symbols and stories but nothing is totally clear. Maybe that's some kind of dada tradition: the notion that art's supposed to confuse you- or at least to ask more questions than it answers. But often I feel like there's an element of the Emperor's New Clothes in this whole thing.
When I was in college, I knew something was "conceptual art" when I honestly had no idea what the fuck I was looking at. Maybe people in the art community want to keep the rest of the world wondering. If it's too clear- too easy- then artists' aren't doing it right. What's the point of being in an absurd profession if other people actually understand what it is that you're doing?
It's not that I think that art must (always) be accessible and clear. Most great artists are brilliant- and they don't need to make art that's simplistic. There's nothing I love more than looking at a painting and "getting" an artists' little in-joke or reference- especially when I'm sure that I'm the only one in the immediate vicinity who "gets it"= like my own personal easter egg! I also love it when, once in a while, I can put that art degree that I'll probably never pay off- to work by dazzling somebody with a complex explanation about some art historical context for something.
But I guess the thing I struggle with is the limitations that I feel have been placed on me as an artist- and the ways in which certain elements of my art education has had the effect of stifling my creativity and limiting my expression rather than enhancing and expanding it. One might argue (and in fact, I'm SURE I can remember a conversation not-very-long-ago when this argument has been made) that in order to define something, you must, by definition- define what it is NOT. You can't say what "IS" without saying what "ISN'T"- you can't have something in the mix without leaving something out. If you have an unlimited open approach to your definition to art- if anything and absolutely everything is/can be "ART" then in effect- NOTHING IS ART. If you don't define what art IS- in part by saying what art is NOT- then the notion of "Art" ceases to have any meaning at all. And ART means too much to too many people than to let that happen!
Well sure. But a more important question is: who exactly gets to say what art IS and what art ISN'T? Things come into- and fall out of fashion. Our notion of what "Art" is- is always growing and changing. Art will always be- in a large part- about 500 year old paintings- in museums- the old masters and classics. But it will always be (and probably always was) about the sexy new kids with their wild ideas- upending everything and breaking the rules. Because Art is about creativity- and without new ideas- without taking risks- without making things up- things get old- and they cease to be art.
I think the last time I had this conversation, when I rejected a reductionist approach to art while talking with an art professor, the reply I got was something along the lines of- "this is academia- you came to me as the expert- I get to define the terms." I don't think it's too idealistic to expect someone in academia to be open to new ideas! In fact- the whole notion of examining our assumptions- defining and redefining our terms- IS an academic question. If you can't ask these kinds of questions within the halls of academia- where the fuck are you supposed to ask them? We learn and think and examine ideas where? In universities- including (perhaps especially) the things that our professors say. I'm not trying to reject helpful criticism-- I'm just hoping for something more constructive- A little Socratic dialog in my critique... and not something that devolves into "because I'm the teacher and I say so."
I have to note- that while I've disagreed with about 90% of anything this particular professor ever said to me- I've also spent about 4x as much thinking about WHY than I ever spent talking to the man... and that, in itself is SOMETHING valuable- for sure.
OK- some people might say that this whole business of asking "what is art" is about as boring and pointless and hackneyed as staying up all night having a conversation about "what is punk rock?" Well- personally- I never get tired of either- because I've approached both subjects countless times and the outcome has never been the same. OK- I have this sneaky feeling that it's absolutely "uncool" to admit that- and it's "uncool" to care that I said something "uncool" and oh-gasp- I've fallen into the neverending spiral of uncool-self-consciousness... but to me it's like drawing a self portrait, or painting a tree- there are so many unlimited ways to approach it that the process and outcome is different every time.
So getting back to this zine thing--- I think there's a part of me that says that because I've been trained as a "fine artist" (after making a conscious decision to take that path)- that I can't ever use my art for anything useful. Any application of my art into anything productive- make it "not art" and makes me "not an artist." It's like I'm an alchemist- but if I turn my lead into gold- I can't ever spend it- because that would make it "not gold." Or maybe I'm just really afraid that if I tried to spend all this gold that I've been making- I'll discover that is really only yellow lead. If I actually go through with this and make a zine- it'll be stupid- nobody will like it- it won't make any sense- it'll be too obvious- to dumb- too... just too "too". If I don't DO it can't be too TOO- can it?
I also know that making a zine doesn't make me any less of an artist- any more than cooking supper, walking the dog, or making a budget spreadsheet at work makes me any less of an artist. Well- the non-art job thing- that's a HUGE issue for me- something that I need to address in another post at another time. Because sometimes I worry that it DOES make me less of an artist. Or maybe that's exactly the topic that I should choose for my first zine. This obviously won't be the first time that question's been addressed- but (and maybe because I spend 40+ hours a week in an air conditioned office looking at budgets instead of making art and talking with other artists) when I DO read about it- from other artists who write- it causes a huge "a-ha" for me. So yeah- I feel like it's something that I need to work out- but also maybe it's something that folks either don't think about and might appreciate reading about- or DO think about and might appreciate reading about.
Or maybe- if I ever write this goddamned zine- maybe nobody will bother to pick it up and read it at all. And maybe that's ok. I'm sure that won't be the first time THAT has happened. Plenty of great writers go unread- just like plenty of great artists make art that remains unlooked-at. That doesn't stop geographers and musicians from taking photos and make paintings and even pooping on canvas... and that's ok too. It's all art. Or it's not. Who's to say?
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Lost Lenore- Revisited on Rye
Preface (or should we call it a dab of potato salad?)
I realize this isn't much about art- for an art-blog, but well, it kind-of is about art too. Mostly, I just wanted to make a facebook update about the things I've been thinking about and it got too long.
---------------------------------
I wrote a term paper about Edgar Allan Poe for my eleventh grade English class. The assignment involved coming up with a thesis, using note cards to record quotations from sources, and creating a final, typed document (double spaced) which included quotes from others who supported the thesis- and something about a "ham sandwich" approach with the introduction and conclusion being bread, while the meat of the argument lays in the middle. This was in 1991, when nobody had heard of the internet and most of us didn't have home computers, but at least I had a Brother Word Processor so I didn't have to struggle with typing and white-out corrections. But research was different when you had to actually find your books in the library- and take notes on your reading to refer to later, or carry stacks of books home in your backpack- before library search engines, PDF copies of articles, and google or wikipedia.
I have a really had a hard time structuring my writing. I read plenty and I'm inclined to write. I think I showed promise when I was younger. I had some serious handwriting, spelling and typing struggles, but I could tell a good story. I wrote poems, plays, sci-fi and horror stories and I kept a journal from the time I was seven... but the whole "term paper" thing really kicked my ass. I would stay up late, night after night, pouring through dozens of critical essays, compiling countless notecards, and trying to figure out how to turn these notes and various thoughts into a ham sandwich that supported a thesis- in a way that was, in the least-bit interesting. It was so different than the way my brain worked that it seemed an impossible task.
I really loved Edgar Allan Poe. Maybe it started when my mother struggled to help me decipher the meaning of "The Raven" in seventh grade. I was convinced that every complicated allusion or reference pointed to drug addiction, and she, in absolute frustration, called her former College English Professor, Uncle Dan, who, on the telephone, took me through the entire poem, line by line, explaining each reference and clarifying the meaning. Before then, I thought that everything "cool" must be about drugs- but this poem was about grief, melancholia, and gothic mystery. Later, I adopted an old 1940's hardcover book of his poetry and stories with a brief biography in the beginning. Over time, the binding broke off, and I repaired it with a slice of purple duct tape. I carried this treasured book for years, cradling it in my arms in high school, packing it up and moving it to its place in my book case in college and each subsequent apartment. It’s gone now. It was probably lost in the bedbug purge of 2007, a time when, in a desperate attempt to reduce my belongings to a minimum (for maximum sterilization control), I tossed many letters and other precious things into the dumpster. Now I have a paperback version with no idea how this volume came into my hands. But lately, on dreary midnights when I have trouble falling asleep, I've been pondering (weak and weary) over this curious volume of not-quite-forgotten lore.
I think probably picked up Poe again because of the really incredible performance that I saw last November at the Pyramid Atlantic. Some of my favorite Audio Vortex musicians composed and performed music for an old silent film version of the Fall of the House of Usher. At the time, my drawings digital art and screenprints were heavily influenced by film noir and new wave cinema. Listening to this music, watching this performance with this dark, old, silent film, really tickled my aesthetic taste buds, and reminded me about how much I once adored this author of that old creepy story. I've also been re-reading my old Neil Gaiman Sandman graphic novel. Gaiman's gothic romanticism isn't very far from Poe's... and I really like that influence.
As a teenager I read a few Stephen King novels included a volume of his earlier work including something like an early version of ‘Children of the Corn’. This writing seemed to me, at the time, to be so obviously derivative of Poe's work, but without the spark genius, without the romanticism...that made me furious. Indignantly, I vowed to never read another page by Stephen King. If I wanted the real thing, I could always return to the source. Quality: Poe. Eventually I broke that vow. Now I appreciate King’s books for what they are: titillating, mind-numbing pulp which works great for airport or beach reading, or blockbuster movie adaptations. I realize, now, that I’m a woman of simple tastes. I’ve never read Keats or Shelly or Tennyson, Browning or Byron. My frustration with high school term papers means that I never took a proper college literature course. Of course, I wrote papers, for Psychology and Art History classes, mostly. I even took writing courses- simple courses like “Writing and Painting” or “Making Sense.”
In my recent late-night reading, I’ve come to see that my newly discovered paperback collection of Poe's work likely contains exactly the same biographical introductory chapter as my old the purple duct tape copy, the one that inspired me to write that paper in eleventh grade. This is where I first learned of Poe's birth to actor parents in Boston, that his father disappeared and his mother died when he was a toddler. He was adopted in Richmond by a wealthy family, the Allans, but despite his early educational opportunities, Poe lived in poverty as an adult. He also died in poverty. His marriage to his thirteen-year-old first-cousin is well known, and also his spiral with alcohol abuse and delirium, and his untimely death in Boston at the age of 40. The details of his last days are vague, which could be cause for speculation.
My high school thesis had something to do with the way in which the women in his writing reflected his relationships with women in his real life. His biographers often linked the heroines in his writing to specific actual women in his life and his real life was easily as tragic as his stories. For this term paper, in search of the requisite number of sources for footnotes, I slipped out of my depths trying to make sense psychoanalytical theories in various literary critiques. This was the first (and probably the last time) I had actually read anything by Anna Freud. I remember scratching my head while reading a suggestion (by Anna? Perhaps not, but I don’t remember) that a particular description of a treacherous forest or perhaps it was a lagoon indicated that Poe feared vaginas with teeth capable of chomping off a penis. I found that image even more disturbing than the horror in Poe's stories.
I just now googled "Edgar Allan Poe's loves" and came upon, pretty much, the paper I was trying to write back in 1991: http://www.helpfulresearch.com/edgar.html. It’s not bad. My own attempt wasn't very successful... maybe because I was struggling to conform to a particular format while also trying to get my point across. I think my paper received a grade of B minus, which was a serious disappointment considering the effort and love that I put into the project. This is one reason why I ultimately chose to study art in college- because I’d prefer to stay up all night making paintings, than writing papers. During my first year of art school, I stayed up many nights struggling to come up with interesting solutions for assignments in my Foundation Design course- and in truth, that wasn’t any more pleasant or successful. I received a B minus for that class, as well. Another disappointment. Maybe there’s a lesson there- about how struggling all night through difficult assignments doesn’t necessarily result in a satisfactory grade.
But back then, in high school, when I was trying to write this paper, the thing that I found most compelling, that I tried to wrap my ham sandwich around- was the true life tragic irony in Poe's real life Raven- his losses, and his lost Lenore. When Poe was a teenager, he fell in love with a Richmond girl, but her parents didn’t approve. While he was away at school they intercepted his letters, severing the relationship. Someone, somewhere in my research suggested that she was the woman for whom Poe penned "the Raven." When I think about it now, I think it's more likely that Poe's obsession with the romantic and frail lost woman, in works like the Raven, or Fall of the House of Usher, may have been influenced more by his mother's death, which made him so much more sensitive to subsequent losses, including fragile health of his young bride, Virginia. A few years after the publication of the Raven, Virginia died from consumption. Her illness was prolonged and tragic, and it seems that Poe’s own life, which had never been easy- further spiraled downward into alcohol addiction and chaos for last two remaining years of his life.
After Virginia's death, he almost married a poet in Providence but that didn’t work out, in large part, because of his drinking. Finally, he was reunited with his original teen love, Sarah Elmira Royster- his lost Lenore, at last! Their wedding date was set, but just ten days before the wedding date, Poe was dead. In this context, the Raven seemed eerily prophetic. In life, he never would reunite with his lost Lenore. This gave me shivers during my late night research as a teen. Now that I think about it- the title of my paper should have been something more along the lines of, "The Lost Lenore: Poe's tragic life as reflected in his writing." But probably, if I were to attempt to rewrite that paper now, I'd still have problem trying to fit the Raven into a ham sandwich.
------------------------------------------------------------
Epilogue (can we call it a sprig of parsley?)
But when I think about it- I wonder, perhaps Poe realized, on some level, that the real Sarah- taking him back after so many years apart, would not, in reality, be enough to fill the gaping hole in his heart. His lost Lenore wasn't Sarah after all- but a an idealized version of what he craved. What he was lacking was his sense of security- his anima- personified by Lenore, but also his real life lost mother and his dying child-bride. Nobody's really sure what happened to Poe in his final days- was he on a drunken bender? Was he drugged and beaten by robbers or hired thugs? Perhaps, if things had worked out differently, Poe would have lived comfortably far beyond the age of 40, would have possibly even made some profit from his writing. Or maybe, like other tragically brilliant creative people, his was a star that shone brightly but burned out too soon.
I realize this isn't much about art- for an art-blog, but well, it kind-of is about art too. Mostly, I just wanted to make a facebook update about the things I've been thinking about and it got too long.
---------------------------------
I wrote a term paper about Edgar Allan Poe for my eleventh grade English class. The assignment involved coming up with a thesis, using note cards to record quotations from sources, and creating a final, typed document (double spaced) which included quotes from others who supported the thesis- and something about a "ham sandwich" approach with the introduction and conclusion being bread, while the meat of the argument lays in the middle. This was in 1991, when nobody had heard of the internet and most of us didn't have home computers, but at least I had a Brother Word Processor so I didn't have to struggle with typing and white-out corrections. But research was different when you had to actually find your books in the library- and take notes on your reading to refer to later, or carry stacks of books home in your backpack- before library search engines, PDF copies of articles, and google or wikipedia.
I have a really had a hard time structuring my writing. I read plenty and I'm inclined to write. I think I showed promise when I was younger. I had some serious handwriting, spelling and typing struggles, but I could tell a good story. I wrote poems, plays, sci-fi and horror stories and I kept a journal from the time I was seven... but the whole "term paper" thing really kicked my ass. I would stay up late, night after night, pouring through dozens of critical essays, compiling countless notecards, and trying to figure out how to turn these notes and various thoughts into a ham sandwich that supported a thesis- in a way that was, in the least-bit interesting. It was so different than the way my brain worked that it seemed an impossible task.
I really loved Edgar Allan Poe. Maybe it started when my mother struggled to help me decipher the meaning of "The Raven" in seventh grade. I was convinced that every complicated allusion or reference pointed to drug addiction, and she, in absolute frustration, called her former College English Professor, Uncle Dan, who, on the telephone, took me through the entire poem, line by line, explaining each reference and clarifying the meaning. Before then, I thought that everything "cool" must be about drugs- but this poem was about grief, melancholia, and gothic mystery. Later, I adopted an old 1940's hardcover book of his poetry and stories with a brief biography in the beginning. Over time, the binding broke off, and I repaired it with a slice of purple duct tape. I carried this treasured book for years, cradling it in my arms in high school, packing it up and moving it to its place in my book case in college and each subsequent apartment. It’s gone now. It was probably lost in the bedbug purge of 2007, a time when, in a desperate attempt to reduce my belongings to a minimum (for maximum sterilization control), I tossed many letters and other precious things into the dumpster. Now I have a paperback version with no idea how this volume came into my hands. But lately, on dreary midnights when I have trouble falling asleep, I've been pondering (weak and weary) over this curious volume of not-quite-forgotten lore.
I think probably picked up Poe again because of the really incredible performance that I saw last November at the Pyramid Atlantic. Some of my favorite Audio Vortex musicians composed and performed music for an old silent film version of the Fall of the House of Usher. At the time, my drawings digital art and screenprints were heavily influenced by film noir and new wave cinema. Listening to this music, watching this performance with this dark, old, silent film, really tickled my aesthetic taste buds, and reminded me about how much I once adored this author of that old creepy story. I've also been re-reading my old Neil Gaiman Sandman graphic novel. Gaiman's gothic romanticism isn't very far from Poe's... and I really like that influence.
As a teenager I read a few Stephen King novels included a volume of his earlier work including something like an early version of ‘Children of the Corn’. This writing seemed to me, at the time, to be so obviously derivative of Poe's work, but without the spark genius, without the romanticism...that made me furious. Indignantly, I vowed to never read another page by Stephen King. If I wanted the real thing, I could always return to the source. Quality: Poe. Eventually I broke that vow. Now I appreciate King’s books for what they are: titillating, mind-numbing pulp which works great for airport or beach reading, or blockbuster movie adaptations. I realize, now, that I’m a woman of simple tastes. I’ve never read Keats or Shelly or Tennyson, Browning or Byron. My frustration with high school term papers means that I never took a proper college literature course. Of course, I wrote papers, for Psychology and Art History classes, mostly. I even took writing courses- simple courses like “Writing and Painting” or “Making Sense.”
In my recent late-night reading, I’ve come to see that my newly discovered paperback collection of Poe's work likely contains exactly the same biographical introductory chapter as my old the purple duct tape copy, the one that inspired me to write that paper in eleventh grade. This is where I first learned of Poe's birth to actor parents in Boston, that his father disappeared and his mother died when he was a toddler. He was adopted in Richmond by a wealthy family, the Allans, but despite his early educational opportunities, Poe lived in poverty as an adult. He also died in poverty. His marriage to his thirteen-year-old first-cousin is well known, and also his spiral with alcohol abuse and delirium, and his untimely death in Boston at the age of 40. The details of his last days are vague, which could be cause for speculation.
My high school thesis had something to do with the way in which the women in his writing reflected his relationships with women in his real life. His biographers often linked the heroines in his writing to specific actual women in his life and his real life was easily as tragic as his stories. For this term paper, in search of the requisite number of sources for footnotes, I slipped out of my depths trying to make sense psychoanalytical theories in various literary critiques. This was the first (and probably the last time) I had actually read anything by Anna Freud. I remember scratching my head while reading a suggestion (by Anna? Perhaps not, but I don’t remember) that a particular description of a treacherous forest or perhaps it was a lagoon indicated that Poe feared vaginas with teeth capable of chomping off a penis. I found that image even more disturbing than the horror in Poe's stories.
I just now googled "Edgar Allan Poe's loves" and came upon, pretty much, the paper I was trying to write back in 1991: http://www.helpfulresearch.com/edgar.html. It’s not bad. My own attempt wasn't very successful... maybe because I was struggling to conform to a particular format while also trying to get my point across. I think my paper received a grade of B minus, which was a serious disappointment considering the effort and love that I put into the project. This is one reason why I ultimately chose to study art in college- because I’d prefer to stay up all night making paintings, than writing papers. During my first year of art school, I stayed up many nights struggling to come up with interesting solutions for assignments in my Foundation Design course- and in truth, that wasn’t any more pleasant or successful. I received a B minus for that class, as well. Another disappointment. Maybe there’s a lesson there- about how struggling all night through difficult assignments doesn’t necessarily result in a satisfactory grade.
But back then, in high school, when I was trying to write this paper, the thing that I found most compelling, that I tried to wrap my ham sandwich around- was the true life tragic irony in Poe's real life Raven- his losses, and his lost Lenore. When Poe was a teenager, he fell in love with a Richmond girl, but her parents didn’t approve. While he was away at school they intercepted his letters, severing the relationship. Someone, somewhere in my research suggested that she was the woman for whom Poe penned "the Raven." When I think about it now, I think it's more likely that Poe's obsession with the romantic and frail lost woman, in works like the Raven, or Fall of the House of Usher, may have been influenced more by his mother's death, which made him so much more sensitive to subsequent losses, including fragile health of his young bride, Virginia. A few years after the publication of the Raven, Virginia died from consumption. Her illness was prolonged and tragic, and it seems that Poe’s own life, which had never been easy- further spiraled downward into alcohol addiction and chaos for last two remaining years of his life.
After Virginia's death, he almost married a poet in Providence but that didn’t work out, in large part, because of his drinking. Finally, he was reunited with his original teen love, Sarah Elmira Royster- his lost Lenore, at last! Their wedding date was set, but just ten days before the wedding date, Poe was dead. In this context, the Raven seemed eerily prophetic. In life, he never would reunite with his lost Lenore. This gave me shivers during my late night research as a teen. Now that I think about it- the title of my paper should have been something more along the lines of, "The Lost Lenore: Poe's tragic life as reflected in his writing." But probably, if I were to attempt to rewrite that paper now, I'd still have problem trying to fit the Raven into a ham sandwich.
------------------------------------------------------------
Epilogue (can we call it a sprig of parsley?)
But when I think about it- I wonder, perhaps Poe realized, on some level, that the real Sarah- taking him back after so many years apart, would not, in reality, be enough to fill the gaping hole in his heart. His lost Lenore wasn't Sarah after all- but a an idealized version of what he craved. What he was lacking was his sense of security- his anima- personified by Lenore, but also his real life lost mother and his dying child-bride. Nobody's really sure what happened to Poe in his final days- was he on a drunken bender? Was he drugged and beaten by robbers or hired thugs? Perhaps, if things had worked out differently, Poe would have lived comfortably far beyond the age of 40, would have possibly even made some profit from his writing. Or maybe, like other tragically brilliant creative people, his was a star that shone brightly but burned out too soon.
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