To be honest, there was a profit motive driving the Melange when we began our daily writing practice. We had SO many cartoons and paintings and books and compositions and recordings sitting inert in our studios. Why not call attention to what we’d created? Kerri designed products, everything from art prints to leggings, that we offered through Society6 storefronts. Our cartoons and paintings and books and compositions and recordings remain inert in our studios. The storefronts realized anemic sales at best, so we eventually let them lapse. But the daily writing remains. We love it. We write together to write together. There is no other reason.
I’m not sure why I began drawing when I was a wee-lad. I only know that the impulse was pure. I had to draw. There was nothing I’d rather do in all the world than draw and paint. It was a necessity, like breathing.
The arc of an artists life eventually leads to the need to sell (the utility companies do not accept paintings or CD’s as payment. Plus, artists like to eat just like all other professionals). The pure impulse is necessarily mixed with the need to produce something that sells. Along the way there are ongoing conversations and questions with other artists about relevance. The pure impulse gets confused and necessarily questions its worth.
Questions of worth can be a killer if not followed all the way to the source. I know many artists who’ve set down their brushes and locked forever their studio doors. I know a legion of actors who waved the white flag and stopped auditioning. Some channeled their creative energy into other forms. Some did not.
Questions of worth, if pursued, inevitably arrive at questions of Why. The cycle comes around, just as it did for us in our Melange. We thought we were writing to make money but, as it turns out, we were writing because we love to write. Together. The impulse is pure. There’s nothing we’d rather do.
We are arriving at the same epicenter of Why with our other art forms. Why does Kerri compose? Why do I paint? Both of us are reaching back to the original impulse, cleaning out the confusion. In her past there is a young girl who climbed a special tree to write poetry just as in mine there is a young boy who painted through the night on his bedroom wall and was surprised by the sunrise. She stands at the door of her studio and stares at her piano, the young girl stands on the other side of the room staring back. I stand in the center of my studio and stare at my easel, the younger version of me stands beyond my easel. He is patient. He knows I know my Why.
20 brought Kerri tulips for her birthday. Not only has she enjoyed them but she has photographed their life cycle. She walks through life with her camera at the ready. The impulse is pure. She loves it. Nothing more, nothing less. “Lookit!” she exclaims, turning to show me her photos.
“I see prompts for future blogposts,” I say and she smiles. The impulse is pure.
read Kerri’s blogpost about TULIPS
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The Direction of Intention 