About the Writer/Artist

I am not a “writer” or an “artist” per se.

I have received next to no formal training in either, not having attended writing workshops and not having taken art courses beyond some classes in high school, when my teacher chastised me for using “too much” paint on my paintings.

Well, of course I was using “too much” paint! I didn’t just want to paint a picture, I wanted to sculpt an experience! I wanted anyone who looked at that picture to feel the forest, and sense every tree. I wanted to create a visceral, impactful experience, and I wasn’t going to get there by going flat.

I have to admit, I make a terrible pupil. I’m contrary, suspicious of authority, suspicious of convention, unabashedly Dabrowskian (my interpretation of it, rather than an academic definition), and prone to doing my own thing. This makes me a valued contributor in demanding lines of work which require self-starting. But it makes me a terrible student in the mainstream educational system.

Just look at my resume — tons of great experience. No Bachelor’s degree. And certainly no certifications from creative writing institutes or art schools.

Nonetheless, in all honesty, I do covet the acceptance that comes from official qualifications and certifications. That coveteousness may never, ever be satisfied, and it’s probably for the best. That tension, that conflict, drives much of what I do.

And I think my writing and my art is better for it. Because I know to my core that I have to be better, I have to do better. Not just for the sake of others’ opinions, but for the sake of looking myself in the eye every day when I get up.

I am not a “writer” or an “artist”. I am a person who lives fully, on all levels, and who has a vast array of keen interests, none of which I will ever completely be able to indulge or satisfy. I am a person who uses writing and art to approach the world around me and make sense of it in a meaningful way. I am an avidly alive individual who turns to art and writing to ease the angst and agitation and anxiety that is part-and-parcel of being awake and alive in the world.

I don’t expect my work to make sense to people on an intellectual level, and I don’t expect it to speak to them in ways that they exactly understand. If that happens,  then great. But it makes me suspicious when others claim to understand exactly what I’m up to. It sort of cheapens the mystery.

Or maybe they can explain it to me — I might appreciate the clarification.

No, I am not a “writer” or an “artist” in the usual sense. I am an ordinary person with an extra-ordinary desire to live life to the fullest.

If art and writing emerge from that, then all the better. But for me, they’re not THE thing. Life is The Thing.