Part Three: Self Portraits.
Over the past pages we've travelled into,
and out of business, its heart attacks, and through my search for the perfect
stroke in paint. We've travelled a short distance down a path of my own,
laid out in thirty or so works. This book
is built around those efforts. We have come to a point of
"connections" because it's important to answer the question
"well, why did you write this book?"
The answer to the question "Why"
is in the faces of this section, while the harder truths are not between, but
are the lines following.
A long time ago I was asleep in
my life, and as a sleepwalker moved at, but not with my life. I met someone who
woke me up, snapping me from my nap. Now, I don't know if awareness can be
attributed to someone else, I'm
saying no because I believe I was ready, and the opportunity, therefore,
presented itself. That's what this book is about, things just don't
"happen". There is no such thing as a coincidence.
and
the light shown through
i
sat for your photographs, as they caught me in my eye
and
we caught each other in the souls of our selves
me,
knowing, and you, knowing,
our
lives were changed.
now,
ten years later i see a photo
that
could only be in this section,
and
at this time
and
say "hey, makes sense to me,
life's
pieces are the building blocks
of
what is to be.
If, after all this time, I find my self
seeing Henri Matisse in the drawing of my photographs, isn't that image more
than just lines on a piece of paper? Isn't it my truth?
And so I said to my self, take up a pen,
or pencil, and draw yourself down on paper, write a poem about what it feels
like to be you. Grab hold of the time and make the most of it, by your own
judgement. Life's value is the summary of moments. Be true to your self, and
that path provides directions.
From
Susan’s Photographs
From
Susan’s Photographs
I stood, looking into the light thinking
that I knew, exactly at a point in time, what was going to happen. I came to
realize that knowledge is very dangerous. The face looking out from December of
1987 is the face from Balance. It is the face of the beginning of 1988. It is
the face that went to the heart attack scene. It is the face of innocence and
the face that took one year to get back.
“If
she'll have it, and time permits,
to Sarah Nessbit this picture gets.”
I sometimes stand looking into a mirror to
see what I can see, and think that a good exercise. The heart attack had a
strong affect on me, in artistic as well as business terms. From an artistic
point of
view, an experience with death occurred
right in front of me. In my need to remove
it from dominating all thoughts, a
painting and a portrait caught the time, and feel of those moments. These were
done on my forty-second birthday, the day after the incident. From a business
viewpoint, the proximity of the attack to
my birthday, my sense of mortality, and the general
lack of reaction by people at the scene,
began my questioning of the corporate life. This began the instant these works
were painted.
"this
picture was stolen off the wall
at Muldoon's in the summer of 1988,
and as a result put to an end my semi-annual
shows.
i'd still like to know who has it."
"look,
look and see what's happening,
right in front of you.
everything means something,
there's no such thing as a coincidence.”
“Before
one can see,
here is always darkness,
driven by the needs of others.
It's necessary to know one's spirit.”
"it's
not the world one's at war with,
it's self-understanding.
then there is no war."
1988 was a most interesting year. It was a
time where everything from, and about my past, and how I felt about it, or
them, was switched around. It was a year in which I came to put aside my
identification with what I did for money, and the corporate connection, in
favor of what I
had to do for me. It was the year I hired
an agent to help me move from a weekend writer to a full time author and
painter, using the work I'd been at for the past eight years as a basis for a
new start, a new career. It was the year where the battle inside myself was the
major battle I dealt with, not a fight for corporate projects. It was a year
where I put myself at the top of my own list, and took care of my self. I quit
smoking and pretty much devoted full time to work on this writing project rather
than doing the work of others. It was a year of distance between myself and the
past, a year friends did not understand. It was a painful time of questioning
and coming to see, once again, that great change is difficult for everyone.
1988 was a great year. It was a year full of self
recognition and a year of artistic
dedication, knowing “there's no such thing as a
coincidence”.
"the
value of a life
is in the journey, not the
destination."
