Early October, getting cold

Sometimes I wonder if I was permanently scarred one day when a high school English teacher told me I was interpreting a poem wrong. Maybe that one comment damaged my sense of wonder and I subsequently have difficulty approaching works of art with high rates of abstraction, those creations only as objectively descriptive as the stars in a constellation.

Or maybe I don't like creating meaning for someone else's work because I spend so much time creating meaning for my own. Unless I'm speaking for myself, I mostly want to listen. And when I want to listen to silence I'll look in nature or for art that is overtly calming.

But that's just my way.

I have a firm belief in the subjectivity of art, that every opinion, every way of approaching it is valid. Is that going to cause me problems? (Besides leaving so much room to over think things. I already do that. Everywhere.)

But in a case when there are no wrong answers and all of them have equal value, is there any point to having an answer?

Well, I suppose that doing so separates us from the animals.

***
Earlier today I was trying to come up with a way to approach art. Foremost in my mind were the concepts of why something exists (for the process or the outcome), and where its meaning comes from (the author or the audience). I noticed that both could be put on sliding scales (because I like bringing a bit of science to my art). Of course, the placement is subject to opinion, but brings up the always fascinating question: Why?

Seeing that I had two spectra on my hands, I imagined a grid for creations: the X axis has "Process" on one end and "Outcome" on the other. The Y axis has "Provided Meaning" at one end and "Inferred Meaning" at the other. Spontaneous collages would be at the outer edge of the "Process/Inferred" quadrant, and Hollywood blockbusters would be opposite it at the outer edge of the "Outcome/Provided" quadrant.

It's a brand new idea to me, doubtless has some flaws, like subjectivity, and that there is not really any correlation between meaning and which-part-of-the-art-is-more-important. And it would definitely leave out those grand installations which involve the audience as part of the process.

Still, I copied the diagram into the notebook I carry with me. The plan is to introduce my friends to this aspect of approach and get them to play along.

***
Today hasn't felt much like a Sunday. Weekdays and weekends lose a lot of the feeling you expect them to have when the wage-earner works consistently on Saturday and Sunday and other days on an irregular schedule. But as has been established, there is nothing regular about my schedule.

The earlier section of this post was mostly written earlier in the day, mainly in email format. I'm returning to post-typing now to report a marginal success in returning to yoga. The success is only marginal because as soon as I stopped thinking about how to balance the sacred and practical aspects of my creativity and started thinking about "Hey! this is the most yoga I've done in months!"... that thought was closely followed by "I must report this marginal success!"

Most of today's successes are marginal. The more I think about it, the more it feels acutely normal and mundane. Those grand ideas about artistry and how I interact with the world, even if they present me with new understanding, do nothing to impact stressful conversations with my mother, or compromise-forging with my husband, or the fact that I have to vacuum in a couple hours. Even my drawing isn't affected. I still spend hours with my sketchbook drawing from photos, training my hand and my brain an my eye to all cooperate.

Recently my nightcap, my very last thing before bed, has been an episode or two of indulging in a shallow sitcom. I don't particularly like the characters or the writing, but it's silly and talks about sex, so I go to bed feeling rebellious and superior.

That was supposed to be a lead up to "I'm going to listen to music tonight instead", but the sitcom sounds appealing again. I'll see how I feel when the (bed)time comes.

***
I might run out of things to say as I continue to stay away from the internet this week. Anyone want to lay odds?