Self Portrait London Underground: B/W photo
I love the book Siddhartha and have had my students read it for several years. Their response is generally positive but they do struggle with him because his quest to “know” himself requires a selfishness they (yes even them) are unaccustomed to. He renounces his family, friend, God, lover, and even his child, but it is through these rejections that he has the clarity to understand the nature of the universe and his place within it. An important premise in the book of Hesse is his idea of the rotation of the “wheel of formations” because through its acceptance we can learn from our various incantations allowing us to arrive at a sense of completeness.
I am in New York right now and in fact leaving is around the corner. To come here I have had to be “the bad guy.” I have gone from well paid to unemployed, beautiful possessions to rummaging through the garbage, teacher of bright young talents to not having an impact on anyone, supportive father to indigent man, Victorian home to smelly dirty warehouse, pampered to never paying more than $5 for a meal … no fancy gym, no car, no bike, no TV, and most importantly leaving Linda.
My flat near the end of trip with finished work stored behindAs I pulled into Penn Station two months ago I wrote …
“So the train is half an hour away and I am scared, filled with self doubt. What if I cannot DO anything? What if the work sucks? What if the studio is a bust? What if I am living in shitsville? What if I get lonely? What if this is just a pretentious self indulgent money, relationship, career tosser?? This is a risk, it is scary, it does require putting “it” (money, time, job, relationship) on the line and then the question sits in the back of your mind, is this just an empty gesture?”
Has this been an empty gesture?And now at end of it all New York confirmed my existence as another cultured pretentious snob. But can the value of this experience be measured in plays, museums, performances, screenings, lectures, concerts, and readings … or has being a productive artist elevated this experience beyond tourism?
Portrait Underground: etching 9x12"
On the other extreme coming to New York while preserving my bridge back home may be evidence of a lack of courage and enterprise. By not taking the (Kierkegaard) “leap” have I doomed this experience to a dalliance? Another of my favorite books is Maugham’s “A Moon a Sixpence” that follows Strickland an artist who abandons his family, country and career for the life of a painter. He eventually makes his great masterpiece on the walls of his hut in Tahiti before being engulfed by leprosy. The scale of the renouncement, the extent of the turn of the wheel allows Strickland to become great.
"Torso" oil painting, 55x68"
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