Weekend Epiphany

I had an epiphany over the weekend. No, I'm not going to tell you about what. But epiphanies are such a fleeting joy. I was just hanging around, not really paying attention to a Netflix show and eating that weird birdseed-looking peanut brittle from the Monadnock Food Co-op and then something occurred to me: ah yes, I should do that and I can do that and if I do, well, things might be slightly....more good for me.

I don't know if I've ever even used the word "epiphany" in a sentence before. Obviously I'm joking but not completely. I had an epiphany! It felt great!!

I will share the findings of a previous epiphany (which I did not think of as an "epiphany" at the time, but certainly fits the bill).

Ok, here goes: I realized that the quality I value among the most highly—if not the most hightly—in an artistic collaborator is conviction. A lot of words are thrown around when it comes to creative work: trust, community, "gift" in the Lewis Hyde sense, sincerity, etc. But conviction is different—it's belief in what you are doing, being driven to create something because it must exist. Because it exists already in your mind so strongly that it has to exist in the world. Conviction doesn't cower to market forces, it doesn’t move with trends. If it's not there, then what are you doing? I realize now that what I dislike about certain work—novels, films, whatever—is a lack of conviction.

And here's a borrowed epiphany. This John Cage quote on art-making knocked me out. Another great feeling: "When you start working everybody is in your studio—the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas—all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave."

I went to the Whitney Biennial which was as uneven as a major museum survey exhibition with a political message can only ever be, but I was glad to see it. Especially Coco Fusco's video piece, Your Eyes Will Be An Empty Word (2021), which left me weeping. The piece strikes the perfect tone: not too polished, nothing mawkish, elegiac in simplicity. It's difficult to create a project that involves a history and structure as somber as the Hart's Island potter's field without seeming showy or too on-message. It's worth it to track down a clip, to see the artist struggle a little with the oars of the row boat and the awkward way she drops the flowers.

I also liked Jonathan Berger's flash fiction-style texts presented in tenderly garish metal structures. The piece, by the way, from every description I’ve read of it, is something I would—had I not seen it—have imagined I would not like. One of the floors was closed by the time I got to the biennial. So I'm just going to charitably imagine that I missed all the good stuff.

I also caught part of the New England Triennial at Fruitlands, which was so much better than I expected. Like this one…

of the artist Heather Lyon in a space blanket performing semaphore communications in various terrains and continents. Also, Sascha Braunig's paintings are astonishing to see up close.

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My very easy go to book recommendation—as in, anyone will like this and there's not a lot else like it—these days is Chester Himes' A Rage in Harlem.

And somehow, despite having been a teenage girl who spent hours in the poetry section of the library, I'd never read 45 Mercy Street by Anne Sexton before. I had the sense when I read it for the first time last week that although I'd never read it before, I'd inherited it through indirect channels and much of what I've been writing lately has been working in that direction without me realizing it.

I also liked reading about the backstory to Denis Johnson's story, “Car Crash While Hitchhiking.” (a pdf of that story right here.)

Thanks for reading