The abstract

A week or so ago, after blathering on about poetry for a while to my new boss at Frothy, I was posed with the question of what I knew about conceptual art. I actually found myself dumbstruck and eventually came out with something like, "Uh, I like Starry Night..." and then I actually said, "I like others of Picasso too though." One of the more shameful moments in my life, I know. Since then, I've been making an effort to become more knowledgeable and find new art that I like. This process has been great! One, I LOVE to learn. That might be my most overarching characteristic. It carries over into my excitement to meet new people and learn about them, explains why I'm most people's resident nerd always ready to look up any fact I don't know, and answers (when I forget) the question of why I went to graduate school. Two, I love being inspired. I've been getting excited about the summer (in my mind, that means from now until August) because it could be a really creative time. There are so many projects I've had in mind that I've always been too busy to get to because of school. Now, I don't have that excuse anymore! And since I'm becoming more surrounded by creativity, I think I will start to write more and dare I say try to draw/paint.

Jonathan and I hung the paintings back up at Frothy this week and I mentioned wanting to try and paint something abstract so I could understand what goes into it, since, to me, it seems "easy." I know that is an ignorant thing to say -- that's why I want to do it myself to understand. So he offered to let me draw/paint with him once his studio is ready. Since I've been thinking about this new creative process as a real possibility, my mind has been reeling with ideas. I've never even had these thought processes before because I've never gotten past "I'd like to paint. Maybe one day." So I tried to draw out an idea I have for something I'd like to try and create. Once I see how it goes, I'll explain the idea. As of now, I'm realizing how poetry and conceptual art are connected, which helps me understand what the end of painting can be. For instance, there are some concepts I haven't been able to express in words that I was able to draw out when I tried to sketch that idea I had.

Now, I come to the abstract part of all of this. I can't draw realistic scenes well. So abstract art has always been more appealing, and I assumed it was because I thought it would be easier. However, I realized it's likely that I'm most attracted to this style because that's how I write. With the small amount of poetry I have written, I feel like it's all pretty vague -- you could (hopefully) apply the emotions and images to any number of situations. And I like this. I enjoy writing poetry that can express the emotions inside of me in a way that is different from me just writing a note to explain what I'm thinking about or feeling. So the poem allows for interpretation, just like abstract painting. Brilliant, right? There had been an abstract painting hanging in Frothy for a while, a long time ago, and I would always go back and forth between seeing it as a heart or a ship breaking through the middle of a city. Once we started talking about painting, I told Jonathan I liked that piece. He said it was his and, once I told him what it had looked like to me, he showed me the coffee machine piece he used as inspiration. Just like poetry, the painting can come to be something completely different from what the artist intended and still strike a chord of meaning with the person seeing/reading it. I realize the connection is simplistic, but I had never made it concretely before between the written and conceptual abstract, so it has opened my eyes to a new world of creative outlet.

As for the poetry aspect of my expectedly creative summer, a few friends (creative writing teacher Genaro Smith, John Martin, Caleb and Valerie) and I are trying to start a creative writing workshop to share and help each other with our personal writing. I agree with Wordsworth that "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." I think I'm lacking, though, in in the "recollecting in tranquility" part. I stop at the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," so most of my poems are half-formed emotions blurred on a page. I'll get to work...

Find new inspiration today.