Dear Reader,
I continue to either revise my manuscript of new and selected
poems or descend to the third circle of Hell, known as “the
cellar,” to retrieve my artmaking materials. Yes, I do
overindulge in artmaking, perhaps not to the point of gluttony,
but….
Each year when tax time rolls around, I am forced to examine
my ledger of income and expenses. “Write books and make
art,” it shouts back at me, but lopsided totals provide
more proof for John Sloan’s words.
Fuel to keep going is my regular intake of music, art, dance,
poetry, newspapers, biographies, and memoirs.
What ignites the fire of imagination or at least warms me when
Inspiration gives me the cold shoulder? Reading my entries might
trigger memories of favorite pieces that make you who you are,
or at least answer the question, “Why art?”
MUSIC – George Gershwin’s “Concerto in F”
and Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird,” were introduced
to me by teachers in high school and college. Their passion
in interpreting these pieces made me pay attention once the
music began, then I was all in. There was the eighth-grade autumn
hayride in the hinterlands of Buffalo, when we stopped for snacks
in a small store in the middle of nowhere. They had a radio
on when Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” began,
and I remember feeling as if I had just been struck by a lightning
bolt. Another favorite is Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”
because it explains everything about me there is to know.
DANCE – The story goes that George Balanchine set his choreography
on Peter Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for String Orchestra
in C major” to show dancers how to behave on stage. It
remains my all-time favorite ballet and can produce chills and
tears simultaneously. In close competition is Pina Bausch’s
company performing “Le sacre du Printemps,” which
is designed to put you in touch with the depths of your being.
FILM – Tough to name just a few, but what I realize is
that each one had something that explained me to myself just
when I needed to know it. Some films are simply and heartbreakingly
beautiful: “Fargo,” “An American in Paris,”
“Breaking the Waves,” (and “Melancholia”),
“The Storied Life of A.J. Firky,” “A Streetcar
Named Desire,” “Kurosawa’s Dreams,” “The
Godfather” (One and Two).
POETRY – If a poem won’t let me go after I’ve
read it, I capture it in my “Favorite Poem” notebook.
On its title page, I wrote: “Copying down a beautiful or
true poem I’ve found is like trying on a great-looking
pair of shoes. And keeping them on.” Examples are: “Nights
Without Sleep” by Sara Teasdale, “Wet Evening in April”
by Patrick Kavanagh, “Happiness” by Louise Gluck,
“The Layers” by Stanley Kunitz, “The Reader”
by Wallace Stevens, “Moving the Hive” by James Huyler.
I first copied “Separation” by W.S. Merwin into the
notebook and later painted it onto a rock in my sister Jennie’s
memorial garden (Judy’s Journal, 2019 June).
ART - My first memory of being touched by an image was a picture
book with a child-like angel sitting by a stream, surrounded
by trees and flowers. I remember being transported to that place,
as if it could be real. I felt the powerful effect of image
on my pre-school brain. Buffalo, New York’s Albright-Knox
Gallery was the go-to museum of my youth (Judy’s Journal
2004 November). How lucky was I? Matisse, Van Gogh, Frankenthaler,
Calder, Mondrian, Soutine – all with free admission back
then. It was my haven, not Buffalo State’s campus library.
Oh, well, you can’t be in two places at once, right? The
Albright-Knox primed me to a future that included the Rijksmuseum,
the Prado, the Hermitage, the Metropolitan, the Phillips Collection,
the Musee d’Orsay, and all of Florence and Venice.
The arts heal, instruct, move, shock, amuse, cajole, energize,
and calm when given room. I choose to dwell on the second half
of John Sloan’s words: “…Art makes life worth
living.”
