Live Like an Artist – Shine with Strange Courage
How to live like an artist now? Always tacking on that now…..because the now is a constantly shifting ground, isn’t it?
As I’m grinding at the day job now 4 days a week (when I used to work 3) I find everything is getting away from me. This is fine. The balance which was never balanced is just a new balance that never will balance. I was never going to compete with popular folks like Austin Kleon, who does amazing stuff and writes a popular substack etc. I really liked his post on Instagram that took off. Grateful to those who keep offering up a better world.
Anyway, no jealousy, you always gotta banish that stuff. Does you NO good whatever. Instead, as always, do what you can with what you’ve got. Share that. Dream more dreams. Shine where you are.
To that end, I picked up a few quinces last week at the Italian Centre because they are so beautiful and weird. (Which brings to mind this post). I pulled out some of the usual props, including the paper nautilus you see in the header photo (if you’re in the newsletter version you might like to pop in your browser to see it). As I was muddling around, adding and subtracting, balancing objects, the sun happened to swing in just so in its low and surprising wintery way and set the shell aglow. It was a pretty lovely moment! A reminder, too. One of those many lessons still life offers up to its practitioners.
I’ve been listening to the David Gray song a lot — Shine. And I just looked up this poem (which is Stevens responding to a poem by William Carlos Williams):
Nuances of a Theme by Williams
by Wallace Stevens
It’s a strange courage
you give me, ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!
I
Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze,
that reflects neither my face nor any inner part
of my being, shine like fire, that mirrors nothing.
II
Lend no part to any humanity that suffuses
you in its own light.
Be not chimera of morning,
Half-man, half-star.
Be not an intelligence,
Like a widow’s bird
Or an old horse.
A lovely explication of the two poems riffing off of each other here. For me, I’m all for that strange courage.
As artists, I think right now there is the inclination to just disappear for a while. And that’s understandable. But also: Shine. Do your work. Share it when it feels good to do so. Put your energy in the right places for you. Go where the love is. Take up space. There’s no one right way to do things. But I do think we have to insist on our presence. We deserve to exist and we make the world a better place. We’re even good for the freaking economy.
Keep making your art, and writing your books. Each thing you make is a lamp.
I re-read Li-Young Lee’s words on writing a poem:
“A poem is a lamp, and it’s got just enough oil to last for you to write the poem down. And when that oil is gone, the lamp disappears, and you can’t translate it to the next poem. There’s just enough oil there to guide your way through that poem — that’s it. The next one you start from scratch.”
So, toward making this a sustainable place, I’ve just made a new “shop” on my Ko-fi. As a trial, I’m offering some prints of my photographs. Take a look at let me know what you think. I’ll probably upload a couple of more next week. I printed some off (above) as tests and I think they look pretty cool in person.
I like the control this option gives me — I’m printing from my own printer on pro paper and I’m pleased with the results. This whole thing is new for me, so thanks for bearing with.
As usual, you can become a supporter on Ko-fi. (A million thanks to those who have signed up for this — it’s a delight and a marvel and lifesaver). And you can always subscribe to Transactions with Beauty for free if you’d prefer to read this in your email as a newsletter — just scroll waaaay down to the bottom of this post.
