A Pause for Beauty:
An Artist’s Journal
Artists Explore the Borders of Being Human
Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line
- Rollo May, The Courage To Create
I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'
- Jack Kerouac, On The Road
Resides there, at the edge of the human enclosure, artists whose purpose it is to explore the edge, the border country, of what it means to be human. They work in territory when one reality encounters another, when light encounters dark, where scariness and beauty mingle, where demons and gods dance. There, vague sensations are encountered that can often only be sensed on some kind of preverbal basis. They explore their interior world, they explore the mystery of existence, of nature. They do what they do based on some combination of imagination, hard work and discipline. They search for truth and find part-truth. Many of those in this group are not particularly nice, not particularly respectable. To do what they do, it helps to not be overly concerned about what others think.
Interesting people reside where things get a little risky. Where people, including artists, fail. Where people create big, unique lives.
On the African Plains, the Serengeti, at the edges of the herd, where the unpredictable happens, you find the fat zebras with the big scars on their backs. That's where the grass is green.
That's where life is interesting, dangerous, exciting. In the middle of the herd, where the grass is half eaten and trampled, you find the skinny zebras, the nervous zebras. The ones who hope tomorrow will be the same as yesterday.
In a talk on TED, Isabel Allende (“Tales of Passion"), said that stable, balanced, middle-of-the-road people make great ex-spouses.
Heart is what drives us and determines our fate. That is what I need for my characters in my books: a passionate heart. I need mavericks, dissidents, adventurers, outsiders and rebels, who ask questions, bend the rules and take risks. ...Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses.
Heart is what determines our fate. Heart is a lot of what makes characters in novels interesting. And life interesting. And art interesting.
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You can find the rest of A Pause for Beauty 2022 posts here.