{"id":21667,"date":"2019-10-25T09:48:06","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T13:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=21667"},"modified":"2019-10-25T09:51:48","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T13:51:48","slug":"on-things-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/on-things-made\/","title":{"rendered":"On Things Made"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Image:<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

[Image: “Patssi Nilsstrom,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see <\/em>this page<\/em><\/a> at RAMH.) You can read Patssi’s #storypix saga <\/em>here at SmugMug<\/em><\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From whiskey river<\/a><\/em>…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art is the means by which we communicate what it feels like to be alive — in the past that was mixed up with other illustrative duties but that was still its central function that has been liberated in the art called modern. Art is not necessarily good for you or about communicating “good things”…<\/p>

Making beautiful things for everyday use is a wonderful thing to do — making life flow more easily — but art confronts life, allowing it to stop and perhaps change direction — they are completely different.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Antony Gormley [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My theory is that the purpose of art is to transmit universal truths of a sort, but of a particular sort, that in art, whether it’s poetry, fiction or painting, you are telling the reader or listener or viewer something he already knows but which he doesn’t quite know that he knows, so that in the action of communication he experiences a recognition, a feeling that he has been there before, a shock of recognition. And so, what the artist does, or tries to do, is simply to validate the human experience and to tell people the deep human truths which they already unconsciously know.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Walker Percy [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I Am Learning to Abandon the World: for M<\/strong><\/p>

I am learning to abandon the world
before it can abandon me.
Already I have given up the moon
and snow, closing my shades
against the claims of white.
And the world has taken
my father, my friends.
I have given up melodic lines of hills,
moving to a flat, tuneless landscape.
And every night I give my body up
limb by limb, working upwards
across bone, towards the heart.
But morning comes with small
reprieves of coffee and birdsong.
A tree outside the window
which was simply shadow moments ago
takes back its branches twig
by leafy twig.
And as I take my body back
the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap
as if to make amends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Linda Pastan [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eternity is in love with the creations of time.<\/em>
—William Blake<\/p>

…it’s as though the Fifth Symphony existed already in that higher sphere, before Beethoven sat down and played dah-dah-dah-DUM. The catch was this: The work existed only as potential—without a body, so to speak. It wasn’t music yet. You couldn’t play it. You couldn’t hear it. <\/p>

It needed someone. It needed a corporeal being, a human, an artist (or more precisely a genius<\/em>, in the Latin sense of “soul” or “animating spirit”) to bring it into being on this material plane. So the Muse whispered in Beethoven’s ear. Maybe she hummed a few bars into a million other ears. But only Beethoven got it. <\/p>

He brought it forth. He made the Fifth Symphony a “creation of time,” which “eternity” could be “in love with.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Steven Pressfield [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing for a Moment<\/strong><\/p>

I thought I was growing wings—
it was a cocoon.<\/p>

I thought, now is the time to step   
into the fire—
it was deep water.<\/p>

Eschatology is a word I learned
as a child: the study of Last Things;<\/p>

facing my mirror—no longer young,
       the news—always of death,
       the dogs—rising from sleep and clamoring   
            and howling, howling,<\/p>

nevertheless
I see for a moment   
that’s not it: it is   
the First Things.<\/p>

Word after word
floats through the glass.   
Towards me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Denise Levertov [source<\/a><\/em>]) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create—so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Pearl S. Buck [source: various (none canonical), including here<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I often get asked, “What is this show [American Utopia<\/em>, currently playing on Broadway] about? What is this song about? What is the message, what are you trying to tell us?” My preferred answer would be to refer them to the quote from old-school Hollywood producer Samuel Goldwyn: “If you want to send a message, use Western Union!” It seems to me that in creating something—a song, a show, a blog post, a meal, a dance—a vision comes together, intuitively, gradually, bit by bit, little by little, and we don’t always know the totality of what we’ve made until we can actually see, hear and taste it.<\/p>

A few years ago I did a show that involved high school color guards, and it wasn’t until I watched a run-through that I realized the show was about inclusion. The same thing is true with many of the songs I write. If we’re lucky during this process, we’ve remained true to some unconscious guiding principle—we often know what that is, even if it’s hard to articulate at the moment. It was that way with this show—it wasn’t conceived all at once, but rather one part of it led to the next, it evolved organically, and as soon as one element was resolved, the next one presented itself—a new puzzle and mystery to be solved.<\/p>

And at some point, there it was.<\/p>

In retrospect, it all made sense together, as if it had been conceived all at once. But the truth is I didn’t really know what it was about until it was close to up and running.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(David Byrne [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n


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[Image: “Patssi Nilsstrom,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.) You can read Patssi’s #storypix saga here at SmugMug.] From whiskey river… Art is the means by which we communicate what it feels like to be alive — in the past that was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Walker Percy, Denise Levertov, David Byrne, et al.: 'On Things Made'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,4701,250,5,251,372,4159],"tags":[212,1812,2127,2162,2441,2788,3999,5009,5010],"class_list":{"0":"post-21667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-my-photography","10":"category-art","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-style-and-craft","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-creativity","16":"tag-linda-pastan","17":"tag-the-muse","18":"tag-david-byrne","19":"tag-walker-percy","20":"tag-pearl-s-buck","21":"tag-antony-gormley","22":"tag-steven-pressfield","23":"tag-the-margin-between-imagined-and-real","24":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/patssinilsstrom_johnesimpson_thumb.jpg?fit=500%2C282&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5Dt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21667"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21853,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21667\/revisions\/21853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}