Yesterday I was in my studio trying to get space and mind organized. The goal was to go through all the projects deep in hibernation on shelves and pick one to focus on for the next few weeks…but that being said in the way that it is, brings a major problem to light. I wrote – ‘focus on for the next few weeks.’ What I need to state and adhere to should read more like – I picked a project to focus on until it is completed. Now I will rephrase in order to properly summarize: yesterday I picked out a project to focus on until it is finished.
I have stated a lot of things before and failed to justify the end of said statements. On the shelves and in cabinets of my studio are way too many projects that were started but never completed. There are paintings, drawings, novels, videos, and poems underneath many thick layers of dust. The dust came from New York, Charleston, Key West, Oxford, Miami, New Orleans, Chicago and Washington D.C. Not only did I lack focus in completing a project but I also lacked a focus on where I wanted to live. Now that the living situation is settled my base for excuses has weakened considerably.
Upon further inspection I know there will be plenty of those projects that can be discarded and used for kindling. At one point in time I considered starting a huge bonfire with the whole stockpile of misfit endeavors. I saw myself drinking a Budweiser as all the years of frustration went up in flames just on the edge of the Tred Avon River. Had I gone through with it I doubt I would have regretted it. (I was really close to doing this but moving everything, AGAIN, would have been too much work.)
In what I went through yesterday, I found a few things that I thought were promising and a few things that made me cringe when I reread them. And the drawings…whoa…they were bad, but all I have to do is walk through another museum of contemporary art and I will be inspired to put some medium on some other medium again!
Now I need to go get a mug of coffee and begin today’s work. I could keep writing but then I would be crossing the line into procrastination. As soon as I finish the 4th cut of the Street Jimmy documentary I am going to address that novel I started back in grad school – and I am going to focus on it until the words “The End” are typed onto the last page! Or so I say…
Very inspirational. I have several partially completed projects of my own and your words have motivated me to pick one and complete it. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI so know what you have been going thru. I recently 'retired' (a total misnomer for what I am doing) so I could fashion a 'writing life'. That was mid August of this year. One of the 'projects' that I felt compelled to do was to weed out and throw out writing from the last 40 or so years (yes, probably even more years than that)and to separate the drivel from the great!! Needless to say, I have very little left. I remember when you went to grad school and I wish that you were back in DC, so we could get together. But keep on your path.
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