Session 2: The Act Of Creation

Session 2: Begin 3:53PM, 8.27.11 (Unusual circumstances allow my therapist to fit me in an extra session. His usual afternoon clients have fled the City, climbed off the flood plains into the Westchester homes of dear friends with covered swimming pools and private generators).

The Act Of Creation

I avoid it you know. I’ll do anything that can be called useful or relevant to side step staring into that void waiting for inspiration. I’ll cook, shuck corn, put out the garbage, organize my pencils. I hold a chilling picture of myself with my airman’s goggles and radiation gloves staring down at the earth from a window in the sky waiting for a catch. There are ice fish and magma bacteria yet to be discovered but it is all so exhausting.
 “If I said: Look for a job instead of making your art, would you?” A job? I have a job. I suppose I could always use more work. More work more bills paid, less anxiety on one front at least. “The other front, or one other front being the act of creation? Are you saying it is easier to go to a job each day?” That is a problem. It is. It also kills a little every day. I’ve a nice balance but it is a very precarious balance. I work part time I art part time. They knock each other down and shore each other up. “They enable each other? That doesn’t sound so healthy.” Is that the same as a symbiotic relationship? They are symbiotically connected. You know those trust games? Two people of about the same height lean back to back, link arms and support each other or something....
“Yes.” Here’s the cruncher: The Act of creation is just that. I’m an actor. I act out, act up. I employ melodrama and cliches, repetition and hackneyed forms of expression, old saws and dried brushes, tricks, smoke, mirrors. Sometimes people actually believe I know where I am going. Some even hold my hand and trust I will take them there. They trust me and I do not even trust myself. That does not mean I have no purpose or see no purpose in what I do but I am searching in the dark. I am definitely blindly leading the blind. If people choose to follow me into the darkness I guess it is their choice. I cannot except that responsibility. I cannot figure out why they would but hope they will. Is that sadistic? I spit into the wind and there is often someone someplace who will commend me for my action and encourage me. I latch onto them inwardly. I have a need to be noticed. Being noticed by one in a million is fine. My reflection says keep doing what you are doing. I will. I don’t need his encouragement. He is my elusive collaborator.
“You’re confused.” Perpetually. One day I’m a fraud and the next I am the real thing...

Session ends: 4:52PM, 8.27.11