Art and time

Favorite facebook response to the prior post, dealing with time and merit:

Ashley Cooper A lot of times the good art that comes quickly and suddenly is actually a result of countless hours spent on works that were less successful.

It's possible to say that any particular work is a kind of culmination (even if it is a rejection) of the hours spent making art. Often there are deep roots in the ground long before any special flowering appears. To see more of Ashley Norwood Cooper's work, go here or click on her name in the labels below.

Note: I'm on the sick list but will be back with review info tomorrow.

The Fair Unfair

Yesterday I read Damien Walter's essay in the Guardian about the "attention economy." This sense that time is now the desired currency in short supply, and that leisure has decreased (while new techno-pleasures have taken over leisure time) is one that seems to be cropping up in print lately. Damien's take on the situation is that writers should not be too hasty about rushing into print, lest they alienate readers with lesser work, and that years are better than months when it comes to books. The image of the writer who cranks out a good deal of rubbish in short order was clearly in Damien's mind when writing the article. And one has to say that he gives good advice.

But life isn't fair, is it?

And the merit of a book is simply not assured by the amount of time spent in writing it. This plain fact seems terribly unfair to many. Sometimes there seems to be almost no connection between time spent and merit--books go unloved that represent a decade of daily labor, while others tossed off with careless grace are remembered.

Samuel Johnson wrote The History of Rasselas (1759) in a week (I was told a weekend in school, but I looked it up to make sure, and perhaps-reliable Wiki says a week) to pay for his mother's expected funeral expenses. The book is still in print, read, and studied. You may read about "The Prince of Abissinia" on Kindle, or as a brand new Penguin paperback, or one from Oxford or Dover or some other press. (In doing so, you join a great many fictional characters who have thought the book worth a read; Wiki lists them here. Why not aspire to be like Jo March and Fanny Price and many another fictional character in this way?)

A mere week...

Ease. Grace. Water pouring from the fountain. Unfair! Fair.

Mary Boxley Bullington

Portrait of moi by my college friend, painter Mary Boxley Bullington, requested by poet and teacher Robbi Nester, also a college friend. We were all aspiring young poets together and all still write poems, all these years later.

Mary taught Medieval Literature in her post-schooling life but has been surviving for many years now as a painter and collagist working with painted papers. As many of you know, that's quite a trick. She lives in a jolly, bright Roanoke bungalow and shows her work at galleries and events in the Southeast, and you can even visit her at home during the annual Roanoke studio tours and during her Christmas open house. So if you're traveling along the 81 corridor or live in Roanoke, you might check out her schedule! A number of my painter friends in North Carolina and New York have said they want to meet her; you might too. Just be sure and take home a painting, large or small... They're great fun as life companions, those pictures.

Mary is an exuberant, wonderfully vigorous painter and collagist. I think she may have the messiest studios that I have ever seen; they are as rich and layered and full of interest as her collages. She is among those friends of mine who are genuine characters--who possess gen-u-ine character! You may see her blog here, but to see a rich world of new characters, her facebook photo pages are the thing: here. (And if you have a time-frittering desire to see a great many often very silly comments on the little portrait, go to here... Some may be "hidden," but many will show.)

Most questions answered, no. 3

Here's another question from those left at the "Huswifery" post and elsewhere: Why The Palace at 2:00 a.m., when your two books of children's fantasy refuse all European tropes and focus on the American South?

I conceive of The Palace at 2:00 a.m. as a secret nook in time, its name inspired from the work of Giacometti, who told of "a period of six months passed in the presence of a woman who, concentrating all ife in herself, transported my every moment into a state of enchantment. We constructed a fantastical palace in the night--a very fragile palace of matches. At the least false movement a whole section would collapse. We always began it again." According to the MOMA page on The Palace at 4:00 a.m., Giacometti told Breton that he could not make anything that did not "have something to do with her." His sculpture, The Palace at 4:00 a.m., reflects the power of a woman who can enchant the world.

So why? Here is a little bundle of matchsticks to say why:

This work meant a great deal to me when I was about 17 or 18, and when I go to MOMA, I pay it a visit. Unlike many things loved at a much earlier age, The Palace at 4:00 a.m. still rewards me.

I like the idea of a palace made out of matchsticks, ruled by some Beggar Queen. I could have named the blog Matchstick Palace. Perhaps that is its real, secret name. Or perhaps I would never share its secret name, and that one is a nickname!

As mother of three children, I have had to do a great deal of my writing in the small hours and later. The Wolf Pit was written entirely in the night. I stayed up until sometime between 1:00-4:00 a.m., and rose with my children at 7:00. I do not recommend it as a way of life unless one is mad to accomplish something you cannot do in the day. At 7:00 one feels electrocuted and shaken and unpleasantly otherworldly.

Writing at its best feels like being overtaken by another power--like reaching a place where time and place are abolished and another spirit floods in. The Giacometti piece has an odd stance that seems to partake of stepping out of normal time and space.

I have long been friends with visual artists who love words, and they have often been the people who gave me the kind of friendship in the arts that inspires, so this homage is a little nod to how important those friendships have been to me.

2:00 a.m.? I needed to move the artwork, move house, make my own place. Mine is full of characters like the Pot Boy, and it is not so still (though can be uncanny) but likes a river's rush and the power of sweep and movement.

Because the Giacometti piece belongs under the sign of love, and nothing is worthy that is made without love.