This is not some riff of sophistry but an attempt to verbalise those churnings of daily doubt which I have known all my working life; ever since I entered the garden of forking paths presented to the artist by the twentieth century. Somewhere half formulated has been an idea, itself a guarantee of failure, of making that garden not of forking but rather of converging paths.
Mentioning Henry James reminds me that one of the things I really am doing is drawing (for wire sculpture) the quotation from James that I made a pastel version of last year. 'We work in the dark. We do what we can. We give what we have. The rest is the madness of art.' Perhaps as I allow myself to think, albeit briefly, and only from time to time, it might be a real, right thing.
Wednesday/Thursday 2007, 5" x 5"
2 comments:
"The Real Right Thing"? Sounds like you may be in need of a recuperative spell at the Great Good Place...
The phrase sounds like one of those Buddhist formulations ("right action, right thought, etc.") but, now I come to read the James story (no thanks for that), I see he means nothing more profound than doing the right thing by a ghost. For what it's worth, it may be more obvious to the 99% of us whose desires and destinies crashed and burned long ago that the sort of Platonic mission statement you seem to be measuring yourself against is probably about as Real and/or Right as placating the will of a spook. On the other hand, if your career so far is the result of "those churnings of daily doubt", then I think we should encourage you to carry right on. "Ah, but a man's reach, etc."
don't worry, tom, andrea del sarto you're not (thanks, mike c, for getting me to reread that browning). keep on converging those diverging paths. fail again, fail better! (outstanding photos, btw, mike!)
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