While striking up a conversation with a rather impressionable writer last night, it occurred to me, as I was slapping my drunken tongue around, that I was actually talking to myself. That's not to say that this connoisseur of Thai culture wasn't listening, on the contrary, he was listening all too well, it's simply that for a brief moment of hearing some words spill forth I was suddenly privy to the exact reason why I have been pursing art for over twenty years.
Before we go on though, let's be clear for a moment; my journey into the world of art is as plural as it can get. In fact I've had all my fingers and toes in so many creative pies that it might be perceived as a defect to mastering any one at all. I must stress 'might be' because the possibility of someone's perception tainting my own is, in my mind, highly unlikely. For those that haven't heard, the crocodiles of Bangkok have all made a recent oath to eat all those who dare quib.
Anyway to paint an overview of a few aesthetically pleasing roads, I nearly drowned myself in a pool of sweat from all those years of ballet, contemporary, jazz and the loathsome co-ordinating movements of tap, to discover how the body communicates. At one stage I started to foster a hump while sewing my own clothes, to learn the beauty of wearing your own strange original choices. I found the expansiveness and freedom of playing other characters in acting, to understand thought. I replicated african necklaces and chokers in the art of jewellery making, to most likely fill in time. I killed numerous bonsai's, to know that shaping and tending to them (or anything remotely green) was not my forte. I would sleep with paint somewhere on my body from the days of working 8-10 hours on a canvas, to see a language of symbolism develop before me. I built sculptures to discover the choices we have in filling space. I bellowed, squawked and finally hit a few notes, to learn that I should not sing in public with a microphone. I repeated a basic knitting stitch about the diameter of a rugby player's neck, for those winter days in Montreal. I played several beats of a more experimental, minimal expression on a friend's drum kit and piano, to end up laughing at the repetition. I found the best filters on Instagram for photos that I'm only now starting to take. I poured metaphor over metaphor in my poetry, to be quietly shocked when many people didn't understand what I was saying. And I wrote a novel because of an idea that wouldn't go away and the attraction to express the inexpressible.
The decision to follow an artistic career wasn't apparent to me for many years, because it was just something I did, although I can now finally understand why I've naturally gravitated towards it, even if my artistic expression lacked the mastery (a debatable and unfortunate thought in itself).
Over the numerous years sewn together by the invisible threads of memory I have come to an observation that all types of art, and I'm talking purely from a personal experience here, can give the same enigmatic, fulfilling experience. I've witnessed that it doesn't matter what form of art you do, if there's a moment of complete surrender than there is, what I call - the moment of dissolution. That timeless, space-less zone, if you're a meditator from way back. The awareness of the right brain, if you're scientifically minded. That peace of God, if you're religiously or spirituality inclined. That state of consciousness open to its highest potential, if you're a patchouli smelling, earth loving being (or close to it). That marriage of butter, sage and fresh pasta, if you're actually thinking more about food and wondering in the back corner of your mind why you're even continuing reading.
Well for those people who are thinking "...but I'm not creative and I'm not good at drawing or dancing or singing or anything for that matter", I tell you this, although it's been said before, I'll say it again anyway - Everyone is creative. Everyone.
Think about it. It's completely stark raving mad and totally 100% absurd to think that one has to make a living off their art, (granted I'm pretty convinced it would help a rather extensive list of things I need in my life) or that you even have to be gifted at it. I am a firm believer that it really doesn't matter because of that incredible moment of dissolution. And it doesn't matter because there is no matter... but that's for another blog.
Before we go on though, let's be clear for a moment; my journey into the world of art is as plural as it can get. In fact I've had all my fingers and toes in so many creative pies that it might be perceived as a defect to mastering any one at all. I must stress 'might be' because the possibility of someone's perception tainting my own is, in my mind, highly unlikely. For those that haven't heard, the crocodiles of Bangkok have all made a recent oath to eat all those who dare quib.
The decision to follow an artistic career wasn't apparent to me for many years, because it was just something I did, although I can now finally understand why I've naturally gravitated towards it, even if my artistic expression lacked the mastery (a debatable and unfortunate thought in itself).
Over the numerous years sewn together by the invisible threads of memory I have come to an observation that all types of art, and I'm talking purely from a personal experience here, can give the same enigmatic, fulfilling experience. I've witnessed that it doesn't matter what form of art you do, if there's a moment of complete surrender than there is, what I call - the moment of dissolution. That timeless, space-less zone, if you're a meditator from way back. The awareness of the right brain, if you're scientifically minded. That peace of God, if you're religiously or spirituality inclined. That state of consciousness open to its highest potential, if you're a patchouli smelling, earth loving being (or close to it). That marriage of butter, sage and fresh pasta, if you're actually thinking more about food and wondering in the back corner of your mind why you're even continuing reading.
Well for those people who are thinking "...but I'm not creative and I'm not good at drawing or dancing or singing or anything for that matter", I tell you this, although it's been said before, I'll say it again anyway - Everyone is creative. Everyone.
Think about it. It's completely stark raving mad and totally 100% absurd to think that one has to make a living off their art, (granted I'm pretty convinced it would help a rather extensive list of things I need in my life) or that you even have to be gifted at it. I am a firm believer that it really doesn't matter because of that incredible moment of dissolution. And it doesn't matter because there is no matter... but that's for another blog.
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