More Thrashing About in the Void

I have to admit that I feel as pent up if I don’t write – express myself verbally – as I do if I don’t make art. The two are habits for me. But it’s all about finding the right medium, and that’s a bit of a thrashing in the void experience… often.

Today I did some more of that, with my typical “research expeditions.” Do I make books, continue with freeform writing and photos, from what I post here, or have posted elsewhere in the past? Do I leave everything online and call it “Existence in an Electronic Cloud?” Do I want to keep a tangible memento of all this photography and artwork and writing for myself? Make it available to others? Questions and questions and my head hurts.

And here are more. Is living a creative life enough? After all, what we leave behind isn’t us. What we leave behind are artifacts, maybe for a time and with luck better preserved than shards of pottery, arrowheads, a partial fresco which is a mystery to those who find it hundreds of years later.

To put it another way, on the one hand I feel the need to have a physical connection to what I make, but on the other hand I want it to be an experience retained only in memory (e.g., my films). One is the requirement of the flesh, the other the freedom of the spirit. In short, when I’m this split I have a hard time proceeding with anything, a hard time being “productive.”

I wonder if other people who create have these kinds of dilemmas. Why do I struggle so much with having the right outlet(s) for all the things I want to do? Or maybe it’s the same problem I remember having when I was a teenager clothes shopping – I had this thing in mind I was looking for, but nobody made it.

Well if it’s up to me to make what I envision, a kind of expression with multiple facets that doesn’t exist yet, may I have the stamina and determination, confidence and audacity to do it – and let no one and nothing stand in my way.

At least for now, I’ll sleep on it…