(Slightly Abridged) Letter to the Island

Well shit. I guess I'm pissed but I'll get over it soon enough. I can't change your relationship to your work, or to genre, and I hope that I am an astute enough critic to realize that mailed-in work ends up looking pretty bad in the medium- to long-term, even if it provides short-term consolation. So, no worries there.

Some psychological introspection of my own: I have wanted, since childhood, to make "creative" things full time: short stories, comic books, photographs, etc. Most of these projects don't come to fruition. Collaborative partners disappear, publishers go out of business, friendly editors die. Or "art friends," even good friends, like [BEST YOUNG ARTIST I KNOW] start looking visibly anxious at the thought of more photographs in the room. I was actually entertaining the prospect of "Emily Carr University" the other day -- not because I think it would change anything, but because in the context of being a student I could at least mount a picture on a wall without stressing anyone out or feeling like I was stepping on someone's toes. This has a lot to do with why I haven't sent out photographs or exhibited them upstairs, not because I think people wouldn't like the pictures, but because I think they would be discomfited by the gesture itself, and I have a hard enough time liking my own work without the added pressure-cooker of people hating the gesture (what they might call, if pressed, my "presumption") even before they engage with the objects themselves. That as yet-unmade performance about sleeping on the street outside the "world of art" has something to do with this, too.

I don't like business ownership, investing, economics etc. per se, (at least not as much as I like imaginary talking animals, or Imperial Star Destroyers, or Yoshitoshi's weird conjunctions of realism and the supernatural, or the quiet urban spaces surrounding Jeff Wall's performers) but the world of business does provide consolation in that I don't have to ask for anyone's permission/help/approval to do things; I can just get on with the work at hand and feel slightly more alive. Does that make sense? Probably not, but I appreciate your friendship and really want to see [your] massive [backyard] garden.

My scarlet runner beans have overrun the deck -- already! -- like the tourist-eating plant in The Ruins! -- and the cats are proud, somehow considering themselves responsible for this bright green miracle.
- posted by cjb @ 9:12 AM