The Gradual Way of Art

"Work on the ship continued; she rose on her stocks from day to day, proceeding by ordained stages from notion to form. Like any work of the imagination, she had to maintain herself against disbelief, guard her purpose through metamorphoses that made her barely recognizable at times-- indeed she had looked more herself in the early stages of the building, with the timbers of the keel laid in place and scarphed together to form her backbone and the stem and sternpost jointed to it. Then she had already the perfect dynamic of her shape, the perfect declaration of her purpose. But with the attachment of the vertical frames, which conform to the design of the hull and so define the shape of it, she looked a botched, disheveled thing for a while, with the raw planks standing up loose all around her. Then slowly she was gripped into shape again, clamped together by the transverse beams running athwart and the massive wales that girdled her fore and aft. She was riveted and fastened with oak trenails and wrought-iron bolts driven through the timbers and clenched. And so she began to look like herself again, as is the gradual way of art."

-Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger

I came across this quote about two weeks back, really without meaning to. I was going through a bit of an existential crisis myself at the time-- still am, truth be told-- and when I found this passage, I took great comfort from it. Isn't is amazing how something so simple can lift you up at times? These words were not written for me, or for what I was feeling, and yet they fit all the same. There's a lesson for you: we never know from what direction help will come.

"Like any work of the imagination, she had to maintain herself against disbelief"-- isn't that true? Not just for a ship or a painting or a book, but for the work of imagination that is our lives. We construct our personalities slowly, meticulously over the years, drawing from our experiences and our hopes and from the personalities of those around us. We have to maintain ourselves against disbelief, against the challenges that we face and the struggles of the building process, hoping against hope that when all is said and done, we'll have stayed true to the original idea that we had for ourselves at the outset. (The idea, mind you, not the plan, since plans are irrelevant when talking about human beings.)

My struggle was centered, as it so often is, around my art. I was trying to understand what kind of artist I wanted to be, and why. What am I interested in? What kind of work do I want to do? The same old chestnut. I've found answers over and over again, and they've always proven hollow. Maybe that's the whole point, that I never become satisfied with a solution, that I keep looking for something new. Or maybe I'm just confused. At any rate, I wasn't making anything. I had two paintings I hadn't touched in weeks (in one case, months), and two drawings as well. And each day that passed by felt like a loss, and each night I hated myself a little more for not working like I should have, but sure enough, the next day at the same time, my hands would be as unstained as always. What was I doing?

I still don't know much more than I did a month ago, but since I read that passage, I've been working again. Nothing groundbreaking or new, just the things I know best. Simple things. And now, my life is about to change again. And while the change is not one I could have foreseen even a few short days ago, it's one that I welcome, and that I believe will make my life better. Our lives are not under our control most days. All we can do is live the life we have on our own terms.

That's key, I think-- you have to live your life on your own terms. It's up to each of us to decide what that means. But as long as you're living on someone else's terms, deep down you're a slave.

So I'm off I go again, on another adventure. Still looking for answers, still trying to find my way. What tomorrow brings, I cannot begin to guess, but I will face it my way, according to what I believe is best. I'm not scared of anyone or anything.

Isn't that the way life should be?