Submission: view from the queue

it's where everyone goes to cant

This from Matthew, who says “A month or so ago I was waiting in line at the Largo on Fairfax for hours to see Jon Brion. I had a little 4×6 notepad with me that I filled with doodles, but when I did this one “scraps of crap” popped into my head. I used to draw like this a lot when I was younger, lots of still lifes and architecture, but I haven’t done it in a long time.”

Submission: the ‘john girl’

ballpoint pen again!

This is a drawing by my old art teacher/mentor, John Arthur Williams. John drew this in the front page of a sketchbook he gave me as a gift. (The sketchbook had crappy binding but the drawing survives excellently.)

John taught me and my fellow students most of the artistic philosophy that bubbles out of me occasionally, and which in fact contributed to the guiding ethos of this site — the idea that not everything has to be great, the idea that you can get a certain energy and liveliness from just letting your pen or pencil glide across the paper with no aim in mind. And it came so easily to him — watching him draw was like watching a photograph develop.

John was the one who used to crumple up sheets of blank paper and throw them across the room, saying “Don’t be afraid to waste paper. It’s cheap.”

Looking through my files I am pleased to notice that I still have lots of snippets of notes and inspirational bits he gave me over the years:

A reoccurring thought, one that frightens me, has continued to run through my mind of late. It is: that I really don’t know how to paint.

When I look at my better works, it’s occurred to me that, were I asked, “How did you do that?” or “What method did you use to execute this?” I would have to answer that I do not know. Even when I begin a new work and I ask these questions of myself, (this is when it is most frustrating) I am faced with the same dilemma, even to the point of having of having to pull my own originals from the walls in order to see what I might have done to bring it off! Amazing, really—but I think that is really how it should be if the process of creation is at its peak. The process should really be unconscious. You should be unaware of yourself in the process; try to let the subject lead you. That’s when it becomes exciting!

So what if I never discover what I did in the last painting that worked?

You can see more of John’s work at his website, here.

Submission: a poem for finals

From Olga, who says, “This isn’t the original poem I scribbled during class after a particularly stomach-churning announcement, because I have no scanner, but I retyped it later.”

Notebooks Will Be Collected Tomorrow

This is the season of fear.
With the rain closing in and the lowered clouds
The lowered clouds threaten in tandem with lights
This is the season of fluorescent lights
This is the season of fear.
The notebook collections under fluorescent lights
In every room, under fluorescent lights, the notebooks
Surrendered and piled into stacks of fear.
The fear of the notebooks is fear of the unexpected
Striking, under fluorescent lights, and blue chairs and piles of jackets
Scattered calculators and notebooks of fear.