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.Short story no. 208 (nov 2007)

.Exhibition (sep 2007)

.Short story no. 207 (aug 2007)

.Happening (jun 2007)

.Drawings (may 2007)

.Story for publication 'Belief'
(link to Kirsten Leenaars to order a free copy)

Extra in Dutch:
.Statement voor themamiddag (sep '07)
.Motivatie bij inzending van werk voor Hermine van Bersprijs (jul '07)

Short story no. 207. August 21, 2007

It is said boredom is required in the artistic process. Not feeling like doing anything. People also say being depressed is good inspiration for making art, but I don’t agree. Making a work of art requires a moment of concentration. Why would one take time to be constructive when one feels depressed? I never allowed myself to feel depressed. An artist needs to believe in utopias, and that’s fucking hard work.

When I feel bored I usually hop on my bike. Here are lots of canals that lead you out of the city. Towards the funny looking sheep. The dull joggers. The clouds that say: “Hey, why don’t you take up your old hobby of painting?”

As a painter I spent more time on writing applications for grants and prizes than on painting. I was telling stories to sell my paintings. I was rather successful in that. Lack of money was not my reason to quit painting. The lack of fulfilment in painting was. Would you ever have guessed that when you are making money with art, you lose the urge to make art?

When I am cycling, I come up with new ideas. Making children’s books, writing song texts, giving painting lessons, but why am I never tempted to execute my ideas? Am I a lazy person? Am I acting spoilt, because I am in a position to avoid the things I don’t like doing? Am I just not passionate enough about my ideas? Am I being too artistic?

A Phenomenology professor I once dated talked a lot about the relation between nature and art. She believed that nature was good inspiration for artists, because it was so overwhelming. We Dutchies love paintings of skies. One summer night when we were cycling, I asked her what she thought of Marcel Cage’s compositions based on constellations of stars. I expected she would have interesting things to say about this shift in artistic methods to relate to nature, and —comforting myself— give good reasons I needn’t to paint skies. It turned out she had never heard of Marcel Cage.

Today I wouldn’t be bothered if my lover has never heard of Marcel Cage, and certainly would not break up for this reason. Recently I found out the man is gay and is in a relationship with John Cunningham. I don’t understand why he never told me this. Or why I never heard it through gossip, or his biographies, or for god’s sake, through his art. In my opinion he desires to live between his paper walls. A male white heterosexual utopia. He could engage with gay emancipation or raise awareness around HIV, or not? No, he needs his so-called political engagement to make his art commercial. And I have been the consumer. I feel so stupid.

I am cycling now and I see the sky going from white to blue to grey to black. I need to turn the dynamo of the lamp on in order to stay visible. The sound of it reminds me I’m going somewhere. I turn the volume of my MP3player up and look from the road up to the sky. I sing along Carole King’s It’s Too Late. I start crying. I feel my body. I capture what is between nature and me. I can’t not translate this feeling. I think of sentences that describe this feeling for the ones I love. Nature IS overwhelming me, but not without the context I constructed for myself in which I can feel overwhelmed. It reminds me of the reason why I started to dislike men philosophers. The world is still too hetero-normative to make a good context in which I can enjoy reading them.

When I enter my house after my bicycle ride, I go sitting behind my computer. I check my email. I start writing you a story. I like this medium: Letters to one reader. This is the only way I can see art being functional. Painting was not functional to me. Not even money made me take it lightly. Art never went underground, though promised during my art studies. And going for walks —or bicycle rides for that matter— never became art. I feel stupid I believed it could. But it’s okay to feel stupid. I guess.

I stop writing. I feel unhappy leaving my temporary utopia created by words, because for this short moment I did feel I made sense. I turn on the television and watch Ellen the American Lesbian while playing computer games. One can’t be artistic 24/7. I am reliving old habits. I know that at some point I’ll get bored again and go cycling.

I think about the painters who painted skies. They didn’t need new media to feel like making art. But did they need nature to feel like making art? Did they communicate their experience of nature? Did they use paint to construct the philosophy of their daily life? We don’t know what context they constructed for themselves to make sense. If I ever meet the phenomenologist again, I’ll ask her who was paying for the sky painters’ paint and if they sold their works, and if so, to whom.

You know what. I turn off the television and finish the application letter I started earlier today. I need a job to keep me off the street. I turn on the radio and hear Dionne Warwick singing Walk On By. Another great song that makes me happy.


Suzanne van Rossenberg ©2007