Art Blog by Lydia Prentiss

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.