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From: Stacey
Date: 03 Jun 2003
Time: 01:34:53 -0400
Remote Name: 68.113.35.156
Funny...I can't intellectualize my art in this way. This is frustrating; I've never been able to answer the question, why do you write. I just do. It's strange, I've always written, similes, metaphors, allegories...they exist so obviously in life (more accurately in perception) that I cannot think myself overly clever, nor talented for thinking them up, it wasn't me, after all, thinking them, but them merely being. In my head, even as a child, I tapped out the words and images that would be a narrative for my life, if my life were narrated. The only reason I tell all of you this is...well, everyone seems to grab hold of the, art is about expression theory straight off when someone asks why they do what they do, but honestly, I don't know why I do it. It's not some ethereal thing, not some destiny, not some shared, mystical communion with God or a soul mate or my higher self...it's just what I do, what I think is beautiful, what makes life something I can FEEL. In certain indigenous cultures people believe that their soul exists both within them and within some part of the natural world (such as a tree, a stream, an animal, etc.) Thusly they also believe that if something happens to their soul-brother (this is not what they call it, this is my own term since I can't remember the term they used) it also happens to them. When I first read about this it seemed strange of course--I suppose I'm just a typical westerner. How can one's soul exist outside of their physical body? But when you think about it (or when I think about it anyway) this concept sounds a little bit like soul mates, somewhat--two shards of the same whole. Well, perhaps it is possible for one's soul to exist outside them...and perhaps the way it exists is in their art. So creating art is something like slicing a neat little whole in the top of your skull, or just a little right of the center of your rib cage, and bleeding out some gauzy soul-stuff like maple syrup. Then we thread it into images or words or musical notes and send it out to live in the world, and when something happens to our little gobs of spirit we truly do feel it, don't we? Feel free to email me at [email protected], anyone.