Ancient Inspirations (part one)

Let's start this RE-THINKING with inspirations why don't we... and, we'll start with the things I was most  likely suffering from or, er... finding inspirational... a way back.... back prior to and at the zenith, the Halcyon Days of this Ancient Art Career.

...what makes little boys tick? More so, what makes little boy-wanna-be architects tick? Who turns on the kids growing up between the bay and the cow pastures? • Did I really like this shit, or did it simply suit my need to be a little different than the jocko-boys and future engineering students I knew I'd never be (couldn't be)?

...and, what of motives discovered at mere puberty? Over all these years... refined? rationalized? When she held your drawings up to the class, you felt... joy? pride? validation? • What drug released... why were you quietly embarrassed? Weren't you? I was... 

When I was a boy... I wanted to be an architect, I wanted to build big things, buildings and stadiums (and really cool houses)... When that dream vanished (a long story of leaving one's ego in the hands of a child's mind)... I settled for Art School. I just walked in. Barely noticing how crushed those who were denied this... all they'd ever wanted... perhaps guilt, refined after all these years? Indeed... what of motives discovered at mere... puberty?

APR 28 ...I found, was given a new art studio last night. Only a few thousand sq ft larger, but... it's not rented, it's my own. Rather than tape... I can beat the living crap outta this puppy... We're settling in nicely :-)

...and don't for a moment think we didn't notice, more...

...bloody chairs

MAY 10 I've a sneaking suspicion we're going to be stuck on the topic of inspiration for some time yet. It would appear that this is the only thing that is driving this whole thing forward... for now.

The importance of looking earnest & heroic... (there are many more they will appear, maybe along with a woman or two)

Anywhere Out of the World
by Charles Baudelaire

Life is a hospital where every patient is obsessed by the desire of changing beds. One would like to suffer opposite the stove, another is sure he would get well beside the window. 

It always seems to me that I should be happy anywhere but where I am, and this question of moving is one that I am eternally discussing with my soul. 

"Tell my, my soul, poor chilly soul, how would you like to live in Lisbon? It must be warm there, and you would be as blissful as a lizard in the sun. It is a city by the sea; they say that it is built of marble, and that its inhabitants have such a horror of the vegetable kingdom that they tear up all the trees. You see it is a country after my own heart; a country entirely made of mineral and light, and with liquid to reflect them." 

My soul does not reply. 

"Since you are so fond of being motionless and watching the pageantry of movement, would you like to live in the beatific land of Holland? Perhaps you could enjoy yourself in that country which you have so long admired in paintings on museum walls. What do you say to Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts, and ships that are moored on the doorsteps of houses?" 

My soul remains silent. 

"Perhaps you would like Batavia better? There, moreover, we should find the wit of Europe wedded to the beauty of the tropics." 

Not a word. Can my soul be dead? 

"Have you sunk into so deep a stupor that you are happy only in your unhappiness? If that is the case, let us fly to countries that are the counterfeits of Death. I know just the place for us, poor soul. We will pack up our trunks for Torneo. We will go still farther, to the farthest end of the Baltic Sea; still farther from life if possible; we will settle at the Pole. There the sun only obliquely grazes the earth, and the slow alternations of daylight and night abolish variety and increase that other half of nothingness, monotony. There we can take deep baths of darkness, while sometimes for our entertainment, the Aurora Borealis will shoot up its rose-red sheafs like the reflections of the fireworks of hell!" 

At last my soul explodes! "Anywhere! Just so it is out of the world!"

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - Burroughs

Visual art and writing don't exist on an aesthetic hierarchy that positions one above the other, because each is capable of things the other can't do at all. Sometimes one picture is equal to 30 pages of discourse, just as there are things images are completely incapable of communicating. - William S. Burroughs