I dreamed this morning that the only way I could "get down from the second floor" in the building I was working in was to slide down a chute (like the cast iron chutes outdoors at City Museum, only shorter). But I got stuck. And entangled in a blanket someone had left there. My fingers could get around the iron bars and I was inching my way down, but I called for help. A man came along, grabbed my feet and pulled me out.
How symbolic can it get!?? A breech delivery down the rebirth canal. And just yesterday I spent all afternoon trying to rebirth myself back into the "Pandora" project I stopped working on in early December.
I cleaned off my studio table and pulled all the materials front and center. I see I've done a lot of work.
On 1/11, I jotted down some reasons why I must be fearful of reopening the project, even though my cartooning class had given me a lot of positive reinforcement. Fears: "not being able to draw... slowness... other things I need to do... purposeless (no one might ever see it)... too narrow (no one will appreciate)... just another whiney story about a job that went sour... it will be crappy... I'm lazy and enjoy doing nothing."
Okay, I know I'm not lazy. 35 years ago I wrote down this quote from Dangling Man by Saul Bellow:
Still no fruits and flowers. I have been too lazy to stir out. But I know I am not lazy. Here is an incalculable deception. Lazy we are not. When we seem so, our cyclonic wishes are baffled and pride requires us to be indifferent.
The rest of it boils down to insecurity about leading "the art life." At the moment David Lynch might wind up being the dude who yanks me out of the rebirth canal. I finished reading The Big Fish, and we've been watching his very surreal movies. In his serenity, Lynch can face the horror of human insecurities and self-disillusionment head on. He reminds me that
complete dedication... is the only way you're going to get in deep and discover things. So anythng that distracts from that path of discovery is not part of the art life... The art life means a freedom... but it doesn't have to be selfish; it just means that you need time.
Lynch took five years to complete "Eraserhead," working all night and supporting his family with a paper delivery route.
That's enough for today... More>>>
1.23.07