why our blood is red...
I sit and take in a quietly beautiful scene...high stone walls winding snakelike through an autumn wood; brilliantly scarlet leaves running like a chain through a mass of hanging willow branches hovering over a smooth lake.
I'm viewing a dvd about the work of an artist named Andy Goldsworthy, entitled
Rivers and Tides. So this guy Andy lives in gorgeous Scotland, has a wife and children, is totally existential, and makes his living by fusing icicles together, creating pools of dandelions in river crevices, and building egg-shaped towers of stone only to watch them disappear under an oncoming tide.
He's commissioned all over the world to create his artwork.
And it's very inspiring. It's a beautifully filmed little documentary, showing the trials and successes of his often intricate and frustrtaing work, and giving the viewer insight into what he's trying to communicate (though as i watch mister Goldsworthy ramble on to the camera, all i have to do is imagine him with a lisp and he immediately reminds me of a startlingly thoughtful Corky St Clair...).
Yet in watching him work, and comparing his productiveness to mine--especially when i agree with him when he says that if he goes for more than a couple of weeks without creating something he begins to lose himself--i've realized, more and more clearly, something i've been dreading to admit for some time now...
I'm a very lazy person.
No, really. And i seem to find that this laziness plagues not the unnecessary things in my life, but those that bring about daily functioning, productivity and confidence. My work. My health. My relationships with other people. My creativity.
I realize that some people who read this will probably be put off by it. But i have to be honest.
I'm shown a rushing river. He grinds iron-rich stones down to powder, throwing the pigment into the river, turning the water an opaque, shocking red. Like blood...
I'm finding that instead of thriving under pressure, as i once did...i now crack under it. Instead of writing every day, as i used to...i can barely bring myself to do it but once a week. Instead of getting up and running in the morning, i sleep well past the coolness in the start of the day (when i can). I'm so afraid to commit myself to things, to do anything that would benefit my own spirit. Especially when it comes to my relationships and creative outlets.
aaaaaaaaaaand i'm leaving to attend an intensive art school in 3 months.
"When i make a work i take it to the very edge of it's collapse", Andy just mused. And as those words voiced over what he was doing, the intricate web of twigs and branches he had spent hours building crumpled to the ground at the softest gust of the slightest wind.
I guess you just have to be willing to risk things.
And God help me, i need to.
