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Here, in the yellow light, each word pulls me closer to my destiny. As you can plainly see, I’m slowly working my way out of the thicket. The only life I’m left with, as I look at the span I’ve managed to traverse, is the one I gave to Beauty. Correction: I could say, the one I gave for Beauty.
Along with the England of my youth, Beauty has been relegated to some small sphere of the past-tense. Yearning to free myself of guilt, I can only envision the vast overturning of many a rock. I could go back, sure I could, and the spiral I’d see coming up the road, would, damn-well, still be there:
Each month, unfurled, in a dream-weave; a monument, erected in honor of the out-of-control; a simple, yet unbalanced, affair of the heart; and, a churning of all things illuminating, distorted into something gross, something unheard of, revealed.
No getting away from it, I’d say.
****** ******
Beauty entered my life, pretty as they come, on Christmas Eve morning. [After all the peddling it would take to get to this part of the story, I wouldn’t have had enough air left in me to complete the journey. In any event, I continue slowly, acknowledging this long-winded flight of fancy, which in the aftermath can only attest to my present state of mind. God knows.]
My life turned out to be much more subtle than what could be gathered in words alone. If I could speak freely about my History, with all its implications laid out as testament to my present condition, there wouldn’t be any great leaps gone unnoticed.
In respect to the craft of painting, I was single-minded; selfishly aligned to my own vision of what constituted a fine work of Art. My business was the business of creation; however, when it came to outspokenness, or the opinion of another painter in the field, I kept my own council within myself,withdrawing fully from the spectacle at hand. [To put it bluntly, I’ve seen a lot of crap hung upon a gallery wall. At times, its taken all the powers of an Apollo not to spit on the canvas, while shouting the word “shit” towards the rafters.]
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As so much of personality resides close to hearth and home, I suppose whatever restraint I’ve developed can be traced to my upbringing:
As a child, I tended to be happiest when in my own thoughts. You could always find me off in some corner somewhere, colouring or sketching.
Another factor, which can be traced, added, to the stew, is the fact that in our humble, working-class, flat, children were born to be seen, not heard; even if we were heard, we wouldn’t be able to get a word in sideways, for all the bickering that went on, back and forth. Without compromise, Art became everything. My solitary ways, and the taunts of Others, caused me much grief--but, no matter.
****** ******
I could have ruined myself against a cliff-face; however, I still managed in my young life to hope-against-hope, plow ahead, full speed. Within this City, my adopted home, every brushstroke was an appeal to clarity, and sanity; a consummate vision, born out of solitude.
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For the past few days I’ve been gazing at the photographs of ghosts and muses. For once in my bloody life, I feel responsible toward something more than my own scars, and the unacknowledged wounds which underlie them:
They’re the dark spaces sitting between each word on my computer screen; tinged in a shade of yellow, as yellow as my own skin.
Each space....
....as present as my ragged breath.
Everything ends with her.
Why not go back? I could trot of the befuddled, fog-bound, cityscape of London; bring all the bloody skeletons out of the closet. I could go back, as a beginning, as far as my Childhood. If I wanted to write a full-fledged autobiography, and not a memoir, (as such) the Church of England’s pea-soup afternoons would finally get the airing out they deserve.
[Along with, Father Allsworthy, (another, “gentleman”) who in his black robe, sermonized to all of us lost souls. With reverence, we’re pressed together in our pews; looking up at him, up there, on the alter. In the chapel, all grows in silence. We sit upon our transgressor backsides, taking in fully his strident words; his full-throated oratory.
Meanwhile, the workers, with their all-too-hung-over-heads, bowed in prayer, try to erase the previous nights misbehavior. (“Lookie-there, Steven: If ain’t ya father there, among them. Haw-hoo-Haw, the rummy!”) Ho-hum, sez I: I remember my rebellious adolescence, running with the gang.]
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On second thought, considering the revisionist attitude I’ve been prone to in my present circumstances, flipping through the Early Years would take up way too much time. Nevertheless, I must say the prospect of doing so seems to be as inescapable as everything else in my past.
[Speaking in general terms, the choices we make in life, sometimes comes down to a set of unspoken wishes and longings which can only be moved by the most subconscious of desires; some of these wishes going far back as our Childhood, they say. Thus, like a child, born in the age of Freud, I could now, if I so desired, examine my early life as if it were only a prelude to my eventual undoing. With wide eyes, I could peer into “the Family Romance,” and expose all the uncharted chapters these naked confessions hold back. Disclosure cannot be held back.]
****** ******
Indeed, Father Allsworthy’s confessional seems all the more real to me now: As light fades in my loft, and the only glow left to guide me is the ever-present illumination emanating from the center of my computer screen. The time I have to deal with is my own.
The choice is mine alone.
To tap out words:
I’m much better at holding a brush in my hand than putting one word next to another. I’ve spent the greater portion of my life speaking in various hues of mixed paint. So, in the final analysis, my time spent on the page doesn’t seem to be a matter of time so much as it does a final confrontation with my own darker nature. (It is almost as if the struggle to get started, the struggle to articulate my relationship with Beauty, is a vast field, fenced off by too many posts, too many voices, and too many noises; each one of these apparitions of the past are clamoring to get out. The past, in its solidity, is looking to reach some sort of alliance with the present.
When I held Beauty in my arms, I knew where I began and ended--in both, the physiological sense, as well as the psychological sense. Within the rudiments of Love, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell us we were One. Time lost meaning. When she was with me, I knew where I was. I suppose one of the singular truths of this relationship was the one that had welded our souls together; the way in which we transfixed each other in powerful ways. I could go on-and-on about this; the seemingly strung out passions involved; the daily nestling, snuggling, and caresses, we gave each other. There was, also, obsession when we weren’t together: The waiting; the full, dark, strokes of applied paint; the muffled moan, and the silent phone. All of it, come crashing through the door, bursting in colour, and oh-so-vivid with life.
None of this has faded. Private matters scream from all sides. All I see is Beauty. The public Self disappears when you are in love. You begin to see each other in the same light, but differently; all of this in order to see yourself fully.
I don’t know where I begin or end anymore.
****** ******
My early life, before there was Beauty, has been tucked away safely within a tomb of my own making. I‘d even go as far to say, the only thing keeping me grounded in New York City is the life I remember with Beauty. Mattering less and less, time is stretching itself. I want so much to tell it all; including, my dreams, and night sweats, and the paranoid visions of a pounding at the door. At the same time, I want to hastily shrink, grow small, and fade away. I want to hide my sins, my body. I want to see my life grow microscopic, insignificant. [Even as I hold the vision of Beauty in my dreams, a dead man’s voice screams out at me; a dead man’s finger points at me, curses me.]
All within the same breath, I want to inhale every contradiction I’ve set for myself:
In every instance of revision, I’ve mustered the feeling of guilt it takes to cover over my own callousness and cruelty.
****** ******
It’s only been lately that the impulse to “tell-it-all” has become more than an impulse. I’m truly into it now; the motives are more involved than just the truth of it all. The truth, at times, can be irrational. Nothing is ever spur of the moment. In every human interaction there are choices to be made. Hiding never brings one happiness.
I’ve found out all of these things the hard way.
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The one I’d like to speak to, if only I could, would be her husband. His face stares back at me from a newspaper clipping. I cannot escape his face. It’s a deadened face, given nobility, in its suspended animation.
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The silence of the photograph, the very truth it reveals, puts me in mind of every falsehood I’d showered upon his invisible presence; every palpable notion of evil I’d projected upon his very life.
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The impulse for any writing, I believe, is to give back, or bring forward, something which ultimately illuminates a given situation, a given time or place.
In my own experiment with words, what I’m seeking is a kind of absolution for the hurts I’ve meted out; all the false steps I’ve taken: All the unseeing bits of deceit, festering into something evil and hidden.
Thus, these words shall ultimately lie hidden also. On the day these words reach the eyes of Others, I shall be long gone away from this world.
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If the man in the photograph could speak, what would he say to me? Better yet, what can I, the one who feels responsible for his death, possibly do to reclaim what little humanity I’ve discarded? What can I say to him? Can my point of view be anything but a ruse, (read: a rationalization, par excellence.)
In the scheme of things, I’m sure Beauty’s point of view would contrast greatly with my own. I don’t even know her whereabouts. I’m still trying to unloosen the truth from among all the lies she told me.
My dreams tell me I still love her very much. As night commences, I want to forgive her everything. It’s easier to forgive, than it is to forget.
****** ******
As morning comes, I close my eyes and cannot help seeing her image before me. I cannot let go, it seems, in the same way she did. Her daily appearance is so stark, so real; not at all ghostly, or fleeting. Only with the light of day, does my support weaken. I embrace a killer each day.
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I want to bare my soul. See an opening. Peel back the layers of falsehood. I want to hide my beginnings, while at the same time have them slowly revealed, exposed. All these words are gravitating toward a contradiction.
Life is lost to me. I’ll never walk in heaven. Time, beautiful time, no longer matters.
Beauty was all.
Now, I write for those who have not known Beauty.
****** ******
[end, Number One]
(To be continued...
*****
It occurred to me, as I walked those two blocks to Cee-Cee’s:
Maybe, this transformation (metamorphosis?) I’ve undergone is only the fateful outcome of a promise-filled, yet banal, solitude. Outside of any fear I’ve carried [about perpetually being alone] a thin layer of solitude could be discerned, always present, pushing me ever deeper into withdrawal.
What developed in this creative solitude, I’d devised and mastered, was a distinct indifference towards any fear of aloneness:
I was comfortable in my solitary surroundings; separateness from others no longer mattered to me. The nib, while sketching, or the brush, while painting, became the center of my life. The aloneness I immersed myself in carried a distinct echo of ease, comfort. What I found, to my utter delight, after months of concentrated effort, was I could transcend the paired realms of resignation and depression. It was from this contrary nexus of solitude (so much, like a womb, it was) I’d managed to shut out, completely, the outside world.
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The voices.
The chattering mouths.
All telephones; and, answering machines, disconnected.
All laughter, and sadness and world events, and more sadness; and, conflict and further chattering, [No celebrities, and useless non-real conversation] on television.
All relationships, [family, and especially, friends] pushed aside, for an extended vacation.
In a word, “Everything” other than Myself, or what could be put on canvas; what could be touched, with a brush, in Art. Whatever creativity I possessed, [and, there are those who still dispute any notion of creativity in my Work]; whatever, small beer talent I might’ve pursued in my Liverpool days, attached itself to my aloneness like a pair of hot tongs, refusing to let go. I had only myself to fall back on.
And so, from that moment forward, a small part of my secret soul dominated each canvas.
The forty paintings I dried and leaned against the white walls of my loft, were the penultimate expression of my singularity of purpose. A huge piece of myself, previously lying dormant, was revealed with each small dab of the brush.
I just couldn’t see it.
I just wouldn’t see it.
Swept up, within my own passion, I became blind to every subtlety of Self, residing in these dark Works of Art. The subtext of these paintings was inspired by my own deeper secrets, revealed. I was bound, and at the same time boundless; a flashing yellow light of inspiration. It was this, and this alone, carrying me forward.
Working alone. Working at a breathless pace. Discovering myself, more alive than ever before.
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This was a heady time for me. Each shallow part of myself seemed to thicken into something expansive. It was more than I’d ever hoped to become. There was too much promise staring me in the face; too much gold-leafed framing to be done. I knew there’d be no turning back now; there’d be no turning away from these paintings, and the eventual impact they’d have upon the public’s perceptions.
These paintings would eclipse the Museum of Modern Art’s unveiling of Ian Rodgers’ work. Rodgers’, “Beauty,” would become a pale-skinned comparison. [This is what I thought, felt, and gathered, with each boundless, unclouded, step I took towards Cee-Cee’s red-brick building; carrying, a white and green colored bottle of sack-cloth wine, humming a tone-deaf tune, and not giving a Christmas fig about it. Who heard? Who cares? I was gone upon myself, flying. As free as ever from solitude. Way too happy for my own good; and, walking into something I didn’t see, didn’t expect.
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When you’re full of yourself, you can assume anything.
I didn’t know that then.
It would take Beauty--lovely, Beauty-- to teach me that.
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******
[End of Part Four]--08/08/09.--William H. Balzac.--Deer Park; New York.
Christmas, and the New Year to follow, would provide me with an unexpected gift; a gift beyond the one I cultivated during my four months absence from the world. [However, even in these arrogant days, I carried myself as if this gift were expected. When the gift arrived, in the form of an Artist’s Model, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Up to this point in my life, Beauty was known to me as a painting. She was the iconic subject of Ian Rodgers’ most famous work; a gift, frozen in time].
Memory, for all its faulty wiring, attaches itself more fitfully to situations lived outside of dates. Only History, and the study of Great Events, ties itself so firmly to a set of dates (i.e.: The exact day, place of an event, or Historical Period/Era.)
Personal history, on the other hand, is made up of many days and nights, never recorded as a specific date. As a result, memory can be fickle, fluid, and inevitably, faulty. Memory, clings tightly, to feeling and emotions, at times like maps of scar tissue. [Even the beloved’s soft flesh can be incorporated into a skein of memories.]
It is a different history I’m gathering here, [in scope, personal and private] without adherence to any calender dates, or complete coherence. The exact day, and my memory of the exact day, be it December 20th, or December 21st is of little importance in the grand scheme of things.
I’ve always had a problem with numbers; my brain could never wrap itself around them in any useful way. All calculations are a fog, alas!
I’ve lived for painting, and nothing more.
That is, until I met Beauty.
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A Clarification:
Dates elude me. Sequences elude me, also. I’ve never taken care with numbers: They are like the many nights I spent with Beauty, only much more elusive, now that time has passed, and I’m alone. And yet, I am filled with reminders, remembering, with such clarity, all the small details of our first meeting.
I’d first seen Beauty as a painting. Then, with a fateful night, she was brought to life, transfigured, and made all too real. Beauty, flesh and blood.
Now, as I piece together those four months of painting, I’m not quite sure if I’d finished the Work on the 20th or the 21st of December. [I guess it matters little, in the scheme of things; however, I know,in retrospect, it makes for a confused narrative.] I guess I wasn’t born to be a writer. Every moment of my life has been invested in the here and now experience of living: It’s tones, colours, shadings, objects, and bodily figures, were all of what mattered.
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In the Classical sense, I’ve always been a dreamer, rooted to the role of Outsider, and clinging to the Archetype of the Creative Loner.
[I see, when conjuring this image:
The Artist, in his garret-loft, penniless, but obliviously happy with his paints and mistresses.] My Childhood was indicative of this stance toward the World; each moment of cruelty inflicted by Others, (“What ya doin’ ya little bugger,” was followed by a good, hard shove, and the sketch pad flying to the curb and landing into the muddy, puddle-jumping, curb, smacking with a disconsolate smack and splash. The bully-boys, with their clenched fists, and manic eyes, bloodies my nose.)
All of experience, taught resolve; a girding up, of any wall I could build around my determination. What I needed was one other person in my life who did not scorn my separateness, my fixation upon the lives of Artists. [When I wasn’t drawing, I was reading books: Biographies of the lives of Artists; textbooks, devoted to technique; Cezanne, Renoir, Degas; and, even, a sprinkling of Goethe, Emerson, and, the theory of Frederic Taubes. All of these Representative Men became idealized heroes in my quest.]
The visual side of life, a rendering of the “Seen, became a measure, a yardstick, I could use to sublimate everything gross, cruel, and hurtful in my life. My peers didn’t understand this. In my love of creative solitude, they perceived something queer and unmanly. They never left me alone. I wanted companionship, and all I found from them was ridicule; validation for my efforts, wasn’t small beer to contend with. All of these slights did nothing but draw me further away; deeper into my own world, a deeper, kinder world.
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I’m more firmly grounded in the experiences, and situations, which time presents. Understanding doesn’t adhere itself to the rendering, or recalling, of dates.
What I believe is this: Understanding is made up of experience.
Only recently, have I been able to see the paintings as Beauty must have seen them. To really “see” the paintings, one must enter the Gallery without any preconceived notions of what one will see: You must be naked of all expectations; you must come to these paintings, trusting your own judgment; you must see the paintings as an empty house: the viewer, filling in the spaces of light with their own bits of darkness, or bursts of colour. The objective portion of the painting, and the response, (like a dance) is completely subjective. The emotional reaction-- as in an undercoating, revealed--is the effect (affect?)--of collision; a merging of two sides.
Beauty, I’m sure of it, could see all of the loosened inhibitions, and mental contortions, I’d put myself through in order to create these paintings. Without question, she saw “me” in those forty canvases.
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[Easy, Steven. Take it slow. Take a deep breath. Stand back. Fill the emptiness. Step back, and breathe deep.]
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It takes a loosening of thought to “see” these Works for what they are. There is a distinct, emotional response to consider. The nakedness ia only a half-a-frames-worth of realism. There is nothing abstract in these paintings; nothing left to the imagination. What reeks from these paintings is “desire,” plain and simple. What I couldn’t see was a fallen nature exposed.
Beauty, saw it all. In taking me in, she had taken it all into her life.
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“You won’t regret it.” Is that what Rodgers said?
Way too late. Regret had entered the picture. Regret would never help Beauty, or I. If Beauty could feel regret, would she have entered my life? Would she have come to my bed? Would she have taken the chances she took?: Never. Never in a lifetime.
Regrets are scattered bits of blown paper; reams of dreams and memories. [Clothes, lying by my bedside, and Beauty lying in my bed, and Beauty telling lies. Each and every motion, movement and turning, steals time; a draining of all awareness of place--our bodies, merged and connected, together again, in forgetfulness.]
I will only reveal the truth in these pages. [In my imagination, she hears these words I say; reads these words I write. I imagine, she can see me in her dreams. Does she dream of me? Am I a nightmare of a passion spent?]
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I purchased a nice bottle of red wine; a large, green bottle, enshrouded in white netting.
The Twenty-Third of December: I can see that night so clearly now. I walked the three blocks to Cee-Cee’s loft-apartment. There wasn’t any reason to regret this invitation. I’d be among friends; some, more friendly than others, but friends nonetheless.
[You thought you’d repudiated the Past, Steven. Oh, how blind you were in your thinking, your arrogance! Didn’t you see that extra-something possessing you? Didn’t you see what you were walking towards? You must have given fully of your soul in those painting in order not to see, recognize, the false twin she would present to you.
The streets were cold and silent; never giving you a glimpse of what would be. You didn’t know your own secret self, Steven; your own secret knowledge. You were ready for Beauty; ready for anything: Power, love, and (God, help me) recognition.]
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I had lived too long without love.
And so, in order to be whole, I made a pact with myself:
Before Beauty, Art sufficed.
Up to this day, my creativity, my Art, had suffered from an absence of heart. With the Work behind me, I’d enter into full relationship with the world. I wanted a partner, a companion. I needed a woman in my life; in my arms, and in my bed.
I was half-consumed with madness. There was a sadness, a disconnect, and an expunging of the past, showing itself within each and every painting. The walls were crying out to me; a pile of sketches; a stacked ordering of canvases, giving validation to the singular life I’d carried within myself, and the world.
The canvases carried a shadowy presence; a presence I didn’t take note of the first time ‘round. Long after the paint had dried, the traces were still there.
Remembrance and redemption walk hand-in-hand along the City streets. I can place myself back on its sidewalks:
A silence to the snowfall and the walk to Cee-Cee’s and that flask I carried, all return to my mind’s eye (an Artist’s eye) with equal measure. Without a hint of inhibition my memories spill out; the revelations life provide, for all their colour, are comfortable in their denial. [Never, small-beer, Steven.] The visions, floating to the surface, seem fully aged; I’ve encapsulated them in redwood frames in order to hold them in place. They do not have to be hidden, or covered in cloth. A memory, in all its nakedness, can no longer be denied. [Knowledge, it must be said, can be painful; and, I was blinded, with eyes closed, by my arrogance.]
Had it been any other day, I might’ve cursed my own vanity; (“To be vain is death to the Artist.”) however, on this day, Rodgers’ epigram was turned on its head.
Upon those days, preceding Cee-Cee’s Christmas Party, there wasn’t an inkling of doubt within me; every small aspect I carried along with me was shining with a brilliance, an aura, only Masters assumed. It was, “one-up-on-the-pegboard,” and I viewed the world with shoulders back. (This is truly how I carried myself. I truly believed in the gifts I’d been given. I found myself completely in awe of the Work I’d accomplished.)
Reflecting now:
I could not see the faults of tone, the subtle textures of the work, for what they were; I could not bring myself to see any element of vanity, ego-bound, as I was. Above, in my loft, the paintings had become the centerpiece. I’d spent too much time, four months, in loving myself; never gaining so much as a minute of opposing self-chatter. I’d abandoned each and every critical voice; painting, on my own, and letting the sketches guide me. For once, my Art brought me a solitude and pleasure I’d never known before.
****** ******
Four months of intense creativity:
And, in that time I’d unleashed only a fraction of what would be brought to light in the years to follow. (This change in attitude would become ever more pronounced, deepened, in ways which only brought further rewards.) Without any scruples, I’d plunged head-long into a dangerous affair: A new life arose, dictated by the give and take of pleasure and pain. I walked the streets as if the street itself were paying me tribute; becoming, so bloody grandiose in my own vision, I couldn’t see my own separateness, my own body, moving amongst others.
[The container of Self was completely full; loosened, was years of half-formed objectives, given a weight, a clarity, only now, realized.]
Looking around me, I felt as big as the City itself.
****** ******
I can chart the progression of thought-processes, word-for-word:
Going further back is no longer an option. You’ve had your past, Steven; and, finding it no longer to your liking, you’ve plumbed the depths for the last time. You’ve managed to silence every voice. You can forget the hurts, wrongs, and slights. The solitary tears were a lubricant, and rightful loosening. You are, today, a new man: no longer a child, crying in the night. You’ve burned away every fear. It’s time to move on, move away, in another sense. You can live again, renewed. Love again, Steven. It is time.
Or, so I thought.
****** ******
December 20th, 1989: Sitting upon the plush velvet couch and clicking off the previous years and unloosening the grip upon every pain, every moment, of quiet, in a long night of screams and curses and broken dishes and beatings; unimaginable, in their power to wreck havoc upon a home. (Sitting there, on the couch, and recalling every echo of compassion which might’ve reached out in my young life. Each stark vision, matched by a silent knowledge, never revealed so openly; silent knowledge, matched by the next turning of remembrance, rumination.)
I was stilled upon the couch, never moving; just letting the recall come, easy as snowfall, as cold and dispassionate as the starkness found in those forty paintings, stacked. The space I occupied hadn’t changed; however, I had. I wasn’t seeing things clearly, but it didn’t seem to matter.
****** ******
[You remember the conviction you held, as you emphasized and underlined and highlighted each and every small terror inflicted upon you. Those two evenings, leading up to Cee-Cee’s Party, were an absolving of all past wrongs carried out, or commissioned. The future was what you wanted to see: The Gallery, the paintings hung, and maybe, just maybe, a lover, or two.
Now, your England is gone and buried. To those who have lived within them, the shiftless forms of poverty are well known. The truth is: There are never more powerful ghosts, less forgiving, than these. In my heart was a wound which couldn’t be healed.]
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(And so, the pride was all mine. Lord knows, I was full of myself. I didn’t care. I needed to be back in the world. At this shining moment I couldn’t have felt better--such pride, was this!)
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Yes: The invitation broke the spell, and chased the impetus which had consumed me aside. I picked up the invitation, from where I’d dropped it, and placed it upon the bare shelves.
Obviously, both Rodgers and Cee-Cee were worried about me. (Was I “All right??.”) In Rodgers’ short note of invitation, I could read all the care he’d taken in broaching whatever apprehension he might’ve had about my welfare. In my detachment towards the world I’d given little thought to my friendship with Rodgers and Cee-Cee; their concern was now entering, finding a place. [There were, no matter what, people in this City, my adopted home, who truly did care about me.]
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Even though he didn’t mention it, Rodgers knew Beauty would be at the party. He wrote: I should come to the party. I wouldn’t regret it.
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Snow began to fall. All of New York State was bracing itself for a white Christmas. The cold could not stop the cheer, the holiday. Watching the snow falling upon the skylight overhead, I felt immense joy; I felt drained, and at the same time peaceful; prepped for anything; [ready for life, love, and celebration.]
I stood back now, very much free in my soul. In some strange way, I felt that the universe was looking out for me; that a conjunction of the stars were in my favor. Without any warning, my life had seemingly taken a turn for the better. Beginning again.
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I was ready to face the world. It was time to take a breather, relax, with all my brushes laid to rest.
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I remember:
The snowfall. Christmas. The end of a Decade.
I recall Rodgers’ words: You won’t regret it.
[At the time, he was right.]
He always was.
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That day:
The Twenty-Third day of December, Nineteen-Hundred and Eighty-Nine, returns to me in dreams. [Like everything else inescapable, that day and night returns in bits and pieces:
Shredded clothes are blown about the, unforgiving, Winter streets; night music, as clear and tonal as Handel's “Messiah”; a green flask, topped with red wine; snow-drifts, blown against brownstones, clinging to the brickwork, as a second skin; scurrying, last-minute Christmas shoppers, barreling along a sidewalk, clutching bundles beneath each arm. Gloved hands. Heavy coats. Scarfs. Every breath, meeting the air, a huffed patch of fog.]
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Impressed upon my memory are fleeting images; key elements, and objects, appear, as luminous, as if life itself could be summed up by an unknown skein of random events. Everything pertaining to this December day is affixed to time and space within the watery contours of my brain.
Imperishable, now:
As night returns, the clock lies, mute and knowing. My subconscious awakens, all color and sound; my brain, restful and active, is as pearl-grey as a stretch of concrete, peeking through the snow. Many shadows cling to this slit of night. Memory pulls me back towards an unpredictable beginning--that night, and every night since.
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[Many a night since has passed, and none of them in Beauty’s arms. So many times, again, and gone: A reinforced repetition, and rumination, becomes the catalyst for dredging up that long-ago December night.]
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Now, as I think myself back, I can see that day again as if it were only yesterday. All the feelings are still with me; every small particle of my Self returns to that moment of release, along with the grandiose conviction I held towards the completed Work.
I no longer felt doubtful about success. I stood back, away from the completed canvases, and knew exactly how everything would fall into place.
[(My backers and the people to talk with and the Gallery owners and the press people and my friends and supporters and Mentors, (Ian Rodgers, for one) would all give me the needed push.) All they would have to do is take one look at the canvases.]
The work I sweated over, during four, frantic, months, was right there, central:
Right there, stacked against the three walls; the dried paint, imbued in all its colours; every bit of cast-off glimmer, every still vision, I’d been too blind in recognizing in my previous creations.
My dry spell had come to an end. Whatever funk I’d put myself in, since 1980, was no longer consuming me in stasis. On that cold Winter day in 1989 I was on the move again; and, the only place to go was up. A turning point had been reached, and transcended. I’d used up every bit of colour, shadow, and light, going beyond the set surface of the canvas, in order to redefine the entire working process of creation. I’d taken something “old,” [those sketches] and transformed them into something “new,” [those forty paintings, stacked against the walls].
I thought I was redefining a process of painting; however, on reflection, the truth is I had redefined myself.
Seeing the paintings now, [in my mind’s eye] what strikes me is the secret Self: A dark side the paintings represented.
All is too clear in the aftermath:
The Self I’d painted,--something an Artist should never do--was a Self as dangerous, and violent as any carnivorous beast. In four months time, every piece and part of my better nature was tossed away; and, what had entered to take its place was something I would’ve never imagined as a part of myself. The Self revealed upon these canvases was a self which gratified itself, without respect or love. The images were stark, and stripped bare of anything hidden. [Of course, the wildness of these canvases would bring me riches, beyond measure; although, (as, final analysis) what the paintings revealed of the man who painted them would leave a far more lasting, and greater, impression.]
In retrospect, looking upon my hibination, the Outer and Inner Man were given a home. With the completion of this Work I had assumed a greater visibility, which in turn only hastened my undoing.
Everything is struck clear now:
My inhibitions were transcended as well. Each canvas (particularly, the ones which depicted themes of power, domination, or pain) did nothing but hold a mirror up to my own deeper, darker, nature. Refusing to inhibit myself, I’d managed to strip myself bare of all pretense in these paintings; going beyond solitude, beyond individuality. Now, I was, in effect, finally seeing the Soul for what it was; breaking free, of all internal chastisement, or external pain. Everything was dragged into the light and illuminated [tenderly] on canvas.
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All of the soul-searching in paint, eventually, brought me fame; however, it would not be without a corresponding price to be paid.
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[Distancing himself from this Self, he sees so clearly:
He stands in the middle of the loft. The “I” falls away, and he sees and feels and thinks as if he were someone else entirely; not the man who sees himself in mirrors, or the self-possessive “I” of his account. He shifts his naked body, further into the room, walking away from the mirrors; although, never, ever fully away.
What he sees in the mirror is a monster: ego-driven, callous, and cruel; devoid of all morality. His life goes crashing into another frame of reference. Like some strange admixture of sane and insane, he grasps the totality of his living, breathing, presence in the lives of Others; the living, and the no longer alive and all those who’ve come to know him through the years.]
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Those Others:
They never really knew me; never knew the violence in me, or my own silence, or the pain I endured to get to where I’ve gotten in life. I wonder, even today, how it was I ever lived to see the Winter skies of New York, or the beginning of a new Decade.
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[He doesn’t understand why, and can only step outside of himself in order to begin understanding himself. The man in the mirror is forgetful and uncertain (a weakness, of immorality). These words seem to be the sum of everything he sees before him. He shrinks from the pictures he’d painted of the Self, trying to deny the deep truth of each and every one of them. He confronts his mother, his father, in a collage of twisted desires. He wants to crawl away, fall into a fetal position, and shut out the light of day; and, oh God, why did he ever paint such things as these? He sees each painting (at least, now, in 1994) as some sort of premonition of what his life with Beauty would be like. It was there all along, (he thinks, to himself) right there in the paintings, he can trace, not only his early life, (his childhood and youth) but also his all-consuming relationship with the Muse. What he’d put on canvas was only a prelude.
Everything followed, as if he’d known all along: What moved him and spurred him on and drew him toward that one Ideal, one woman. She (Beauty) was a woman to make all his desires something spoken; all of his fantasies a reality.
Now, all he felt, when he thought of those paintings was a deep shame; a convulsive neutering of all desire. Right before his eyes, what made him famous, turned shameful, twisted, and muted. He had gone too far into himself; like an opening of Pandora’s Box, the paintings were self-revealing entities, which couldn’t be closed, or hidden, or even, shut-away within his own mind. The impulses: The possessiveness, the domination, the obsessions, the breaking of boundaries,--all of these things--were pieces of him, long before he’d ever set a brush upon the canvas; and, the violence and pain and hurt, comingeled (as they’ve been) were all a part of his Character.
A naked, shame-filled man weeps in his loft. Even now, after everything is gone:
He still misses that one Ideal, that one woman who’d helped him release what had been there all along. Now, with knowledge of his own guilt, he weeps for himself; and, in turn, weeps for her.]
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In each mirror, he’d hung with care, upon his walls, he sees himself. His mind becomes clearer as he distances himself from the “I.” He can picture that day as if it’s happening again, and he himself has doubled, tripled, although, standing outside of it.
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[Now, like a burst dam, he overflows with everything inside him. He crouches to the floor and rents the hair from his head and beats himself upon his back and doesn’t stop until he has raised welts. With one, final, shudder, he falls completely to the floor, and folds himself up into a fetal position.]
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Now, I understand:
Having stood outside myself, I’d eaten the shadows and ghosts in my head; reveling in the past which sickens me. I know what I’ve done--know, really know--for the first time, what I did...and, why.
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Going back: It was only days until Beauty entered my life. At this time, I wasn’t seeing the paintings as anything representative of my character, or moral standing. All the mistakes I was blind to in those Works only enhanced their value. The shadows, the lines, and colors, brought a deepness of expression, which in my haste of brushstrokes, only enhanced, and accentuated the overall impression. Judgment was stifled. Praise was loosened.
There were moments, during these four months of painting, when I couldn’t recall the exact moment I’d colored, or filled-in, a particular area of the canvas; each image came to me unbidden, unconsciously, so. (All, of course, would have been better had I left everything in the dark. I was in denial of these pieces of myself; completely blind to the shattering of my character.)
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It’s too late now for regrets.
It may even be too late for forgiveness.
Whatever I’d managed to suppress, up to a point, as I began painting, came spilling out onto the canvas. I painted as if my very own life were on the line. The only person I had to live with, in those months of confinement, was myself. Therefore, I think it would be fair to say, this complete isolation brought every unexpressed, dormant, desire, out of hiding; projected, and immortalized, in paint.
With the addition of Beauty in my life the fostering of further, uninhibited, leaps of creativity would arrive also. A muse, [so I’ve heard] can be fluid and dominant. The changes to come in my life would be staggering; something huge, and without boundaries. There was no compromise, no brook, in my feelings. We were open to anything; and, her eyes pieced me, completely.
My desire to write of these things can only begin to redeem me. For now, I must return to those heady days of December [1989.] This, as I look back upon it now, was the true beginning of the end.
I couldn’t see it then.
By God, how I see it now.
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Every sound outside my studio/loft had faded into a half-recognizable hum. I’d dropped out of the world, and in turn, had fallen mute in its absence. It was time to re-enter the world.
With this self-imposed confinement I’d shed any doubt from my perspective. I burned with a new-found confidence, knocking down walls of self-criticism. The only occupation which held any meaning for me was the clear recognition I experienced, each day, before the easel. As in life, each day was a new creation:
Each preliminary sketch became a focal point, a jumping off spot. Each day became a new round of things I’d never dared to see before. There never was enough light, in a twenty-four hour period, for all the work I did. Each painting, finally, became a sort of rapture, never stifield by fading sunlight.
All those sketches I’d thrown onto a shelf were only a germination of things to be realized; ones having dates scribbled upon them, revealed themselves to be ten, twelve, and thirteen years old.
[Was I at the end of my creative rope? I certainly was, when I’d picked up those forgotten sketches. It did not matter. Here, finally, was something I could work with. My mind was on fire.]
In shutting out the world, I’d reclaimed all the lost pieces of my Self, which for better or worse, had been relegated to a silent place, dormant and muted.
Nothing seemed more important, as I began the Work, as the possibility of what could be expressed in paint upon a canvas. I was completely within my chosen element; only, this time, the focus became narrowed down to a point of invisibility, only to be re-born with a fullness I’d never visualized before:
The approach was frontal; undiminished by the thematic underpinnings of Bondage and Submission. Later, however, the spell would be broken by Rodgers’ invitation. Now, the time had come for me to open my studio door, and exit into the street I’d abandoned, in my envy and pride.
All I could contemplate, as I lifted my head from Rodgers scrawled message, was the very real envy I’d fallen into:
Envy was the spur, the kick in the backside, I needed in order to get back to the Work I was meant to accomplish. Each one of those stacked canvases, one-by-one, were the fruits of whatever envy I carried for Rodgers’ success. I felt nothing but pride in [what I felt was] this eclipse of Rodgers’, “Beauty.” The results were there, propped against the bare walls of my make-shift studio.
My legs felt weak. Feeling drained, yet comforted, the accomplishment was coursing through my veins like a hypodermic of something illegal.
[You took your pride, Steven, and shut out the world.]
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I began to see it clearly now:
I’d come out of a sustained, and dazed, indifference; I’d willed myself into production, into Work. What had begun as envy of Rodgers’ “Beauty,” was nothing more than an over-all movement toward impetus; an imperative, ultimately, drawing me into myself...
...Then, outward, toward some other side. Those paintings, putting all modesty aside, were the end results of an inner transformation.
Onward:
The last word, as I lifted the canvas from the easel, and placed it against the others, was:
Rodgers must be dumbfounded by my behavior.
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I didn’t know whether I wanted to see Rodgers and Cee-Cee yet. I didn’t even know if I could speak again to others. Everything, after all my silent, solitary, work seemed too much to think about. (Would I remember the Art of Conversation? How could I go out into the world, and speak, without whispering, mumbling.) I wasn’t myself, at all. I was deaf to my own sense of Self. Come here, go away...Come here, go away.
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[Well. It’s done. You’ve sung yourself some fine work songs, Steven; a virtual Devil’s Chorus, as you’ve sketched, painted, and sweated your way to completion.]
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So, there went Rodgers’ invitation to the floor:
The release and pleasure I felt was unequaled to anything I’d ever felt before. My Ego was just about ready to burst. There was a distinct impression, lying somewhat left of consciousness, I’d managed to scale a borderland of madness, and lived to tell the tale.
I brought myself back, gazing at the completed paintings, one-by-one, taking my time with each nuance, before moving on to the next.
Then, I recalled, all the injunctions I’d punished myself with in the past; the faceless, vocal critic, I’d listened to, but had never seen. [Well. It’s just the past, again, staring me in the face; a ghost, hovering like a knowing companion, just out of reach.]
I knew I had to see the paintings as others would see them. I had to be free of self-censoring, and move forward.
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The Critic was gone.
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“Yes, Steven”, I found myself speaking into the empty loft, “These paintings were done by you. You’ve done well, Steven. Nothing’s going to hold you back any longer. Nothing. The new Decade will see you in the Gallery; will see your paintings hung. You’ve done well, boy. Very well, by God.”
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Within those four months I’d spent painting, the inner-critic--the “voices,” which always seemed to dog each one of my steps--began to fade into low mumbles, until one day they disappeared completely In the face of these forty paintings, I felt as if a giant weight had been pulled, lifted, from my shoulders. Those “other voices” were no longer with me.
[I had painted: The most brilliantly colored flower; the dying sunlight of dusk, as it caresses a skyscraper; two men, seated upon a park bench, in Central Park (each one, gazing into their own private “bubble” of a young woman, nude, and kneeling at their feet); a discarded whiskey bottle, given beauty, as it rests before the open door of a tavern; a pale, yet still, beating heart, dominating the center of the canvas (along its edges, the half-forms of long-ago lovers and the entwined limbs of a leaf-abundant cypress tree); a phantasmagorical mixture of Liverpool docks, and the intrusion of a Hudson River seascape (these two vantage points, are off-set by the a man and a woman, seated in a small rowboat, kissing); a mine worker, trudging up a hill, with a lunch-pail; two nude women, lounging poolside (one is reading a magazine and the other is listening intently to the strumming of a lone guitar player--this figure is hastily sketched upon the right-hand corner of the canvas); one tree, standing alone, in a garbage-strewn lot; sunset and nightfall, represented by a woman bending over a tub of bubbling water, lighting a candle; a framed sunset, within a forest of multiple varieties of trees (the entire colour composition is bursting with reds and greens); an old woman, seated in a wheelchair, gazing at herself in a hand-held mirror; a ballerina, wearing an uplifted tutu, revolving, in dance, upon a bare stage; a baby monkey, leaping through a bathroom mirror; a nude, and nubile, young woman, emerging from a mud-filled pool; splashes of reds, greens, and blues, spraying outward from the top of an open cardboard box; four people, (two men, and two women) seated at a table, gazing upon an empty chair; an umbrella, hanging from a front-door knob; two lovers, (Chagall-like) embracing, as they fly above the clouds; a woman, hanging, Shibari-style, upside-down, over a candlelit dining-room table (her wrists and ankles are bound and she’s suspended, completely naked); two apples, set upon the seat of a wooden chair (a snake is wrapped around each arm of the chair); bamboo shoots, along a river’s edge, and 18th Century ships sailing into port; a nude woman, arranging a vase of flowers; a nude black man, and a nude white woman, lying together, asleep, in front of two huge salt and pepper shakers; a lone woman, (painted as a portrait) with a tear-drop falling from each eye (there is the crouched-form of a nude man, reflected within each of the woman’s eyes); a star rising, and a star falling, over Manhattan; a Spring leaf, brushed by a breeze; a young woman in a swimming pool, with sparks shooting from her body; five apples, two oranges, and three ripe pears, placed upon a windowsill; stout beer, and a pack of Export cigarettes, upon a water-stained tabletop; a bare light-bulb, illuminating a multi-colored stage setting; very small, fuchsia flowers, arranged within an empty wineglass; light, falling upon a woman, asleep upon a long couch (she is covered by a thin, satin, sheet, which accentuates each contour and crease of her nude form, beneath); a Still Life, consisting of fruit and a half-full bottle of wine; a young woman, winding a Grandfather’s clock (the glass cabinet door is part-way open, and the woman’s breasts and lower-body can be glimpsed, in reflecting brushstrokes. The woman is wearing an old, lace nightgown. The clock is poised at twelve o’clock); shackles, whips, paddles, and two masks, suspended by hooks, on a bare wall; a group of women, playing softball in Central Park; a Self-Portrait: brushes, and a palette, placed upon a table-top (at the edge of the canvas, one part of an easel can be discerned, and my face is partially seen there, sketched); a young woman, bending over the two arms of a living-room chair (both of her bare buttocks are uplifted, and out-thrust, from the center of the chair); and, finally, the interior of a bedroom, viewed through an open window (a man and a woman can be seen, naked and asleep, in each others arms).
Forty paintings, done.
[to be continued...]
** [ ...The colour, the expression, and the creation. These objectives, staring
back at me like a History of Art, were the only things real to me. ]
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** [ Now, as if it were yesterday:
** December Twenty-First, Nineteen-Hundred-and-Eighty-Nine. Four months, and forty paintings later, I stood back from the canvases, stacked against the bare walls, and surveyed the scene before me. Each painting seemed more brilliant than the one lying beneath it.
**The brush I held in my hand had fallen to the floor. Painting had never been so selflessly pursued; so recklessly endeavored. Number Forty, still upon the easel, stood in the center of the room like a lone exclamation point. ]
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** I was weak with the notion of creation, spilling about me. My sight had narrowed itself completely.
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** There had to be a disturbance in the air itself, before I could awaken to anything else; a shift forward, propelling me toward what only fate could grant.
** Then, bending down to pick up the fallen brush, I heard the clank of the old Otis Elevator down the hall and the footsteps coming, closer still, down the hall and the eventual knock upon my door...insistently, pounding [“Steven.. Steven, are you in there.”], followed by a rustle of paper.
** However, it was only after the footsteps had receded back down the hallway, I would awaken fully back to consciousness. I swiveled my head to the door, and my eyes fell upon the single white sheet of paper, which had been hastily thrust beneath it.
** The voice at the door was Ian Rodgers’. The note was addressed to me:
** Dear Steven:
** I know you’re home. With very little luck, both Cee-Cee and I have tried to get in touch with you, over the phone. The telephone company has informed us that your phone is off the hook.
** In any event, I’m sure you realize Cee-Cee’s Holiday Party is coming up.
** Be there, Steven. You won’t regret it.
** Please come to the party...hope to see you before the next Decade commences. Be at Cee-Cee’s, Eight O’clock sharp, December Twenty-Third.
** Talk to you then.
** Hope all is well.
** Cee-Cee, sends you her love,
** Rodgers.
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** ...”Cee-Cee, sends you her love.” That was Rodgers’ way: The indirect message-carrier, flinging someone else’s love in your direction as if the tipple of his communication were devoid of any friendship on his part; as if he’d stepped aside and let his wife speak for him. It was the classic, loving, distance of the Mentor.
** In my right hand I held my brush; in my left hand, Rodgers note. All I could feel, all I could connect with, seemed abundantly far away.
** [I’d spent four months out of touch with human voices; only now, was I beginning to see what my absence had wrought. Inside of Rodgers’ note I could decipher the detachment I’d mustered in order to give myself fully to my Work. Each line was a testament to the loss Rodgers felt; each word of his note, capturing the essence of his confusion. I could read his detachment from me:
** All the questions he’d left out, the questions he’d ask the next time he saw me. (The ability Rodgers had of disengaging himself did nothing to solidify my already delusional isolation. I felt, quite frankly, euphoric,yet guilty, in the same moment; just a small twinge, nestling itself, for later acknowledgment.)]
** Of course, the note was written by Rodgers; however, as I stood there, after four months, wearing my paint-spattered smock, it seemed what I’d read was the annoyance of one who’d been asked to bestow this invitation upon me.
** I was too distant. I couldn’t trust Rodgers any longer; couldn’t trust him with the impetus I’d felt, the creative spark. I wanted to step away, without any undue judgment, from my friend and Mentor.
** Was I jealous of his success? (Wait a minute, Steven, I thought, isn’t it a kind of “good” envy I feel for Rodgers’ success? It isn’t jealousy, at all.)
** My head was doing flip-flops. I needed to bathe, sleep, and eat.
****** ******
It wasn’t easy:
Isolating myself, for an extended period of time, away from the sounds of the city. The Village was alive with a constant, free-flowing, deluge of clamorous noises; everything, from air-braking delivery vans, to the street-vendor hawking of the near-homeless, reached my ears.
The solitude I’d craved was in desperate dispute with my environment. Every time I tried to see beyond my four walls, something nearer would stun my perceptions.
Unknowingly, I was getting even closer to an Ideal I’d desired in my Work.
I’d transformed my living space, making it as bare of clutter as I could. The couches were pushed, flush, against one wall; and, the central living area was cleared of all chairs, tables, and knick-knacks. In four hours time, the bare floorboards were gleaming; my Work-space created.
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Looking backwards now, I can claim, there wasn’t anything forced in this solitary confinement; it was completely self-imposed. I had assumed the full role of “The Hibernating Artist” like a Monk of Old. I began, feverishly, with the preliminary sketches; envisioning, and revising, multiple aspects I’d hastily disregarded the first time around. Nothing stayed my hand. My pencil glided across the sketch pad. I was now in another space, another place; all of it, more deep in tone and form. The results, were like nothing I’d ever done before.
What had emerged as a small detail, in those first sketches, grew greater with each flight of suspended attention. The sketches produced seemed born from new attitudes; lighter and brighter.
Days flew by. I did nothing, but drink cool water and sketch. Things became fuzzy, adding a playfulness to my drawings, as they neared completion.
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After two weeks with the sketches, the time had finally arrived to begin painting. Of all, I could count thirty preliminary sketches; I would work off of each one, in my zeal, fine-tuning each nuance, upon a fresh, blank, canvas.
[Paint, man. Paint.]
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In shutting away the world, I’d reached a turning point; a new direction. And, fragmented as all this may seem, I began to paint again. Truly paint.
Four months: Quiet, solitude, and the sound of my own breathing. I couldn’t trust my voice; didn’t hear any other. No telephone or television. Only the painting sustained me; only, the picture itself.
TO BE CONTINUED...
