Preaching to the Choir
A few years back I gave a talk at the Everett Auditorium to about 1500 kids and their folks who were there for recognition in the arts in this area, the Scholastic Arts Awards ceremony. Gail Merrick, our fine art instructor up at the High School, asked me to be keynote speaker and in a moment of weakness I acquiesced. This, among lots of other things, is what I had to say to these poor impressionable youths.
I been racking my brain what I want to say to you folks today, something maybe inspirational that would make you want to give your whole lives to ART. Or maybe go the other route and say, holy rabbits, RUN while you still can…. Get a well paying job, buy a nice house, a fancy car, live the American Dream.
When I was exactly your age, I had a speaker come to an assembly like this that I went to. It was for the Wisconsin State Debate kickoff for that year, 1967, down at the State Capital, Madison, and our speaker was a well known defense attorney. He asked how many of us planned to go into law and most of us, including myself, raised our hands. Then he asked how many wanted to be defense attorneys and most of us kept our hands up. He proceeded, in the next half hour, to tell us that he thought probably we didn’t have a very accurate notion of what that meant, probably sort of movie stuff, Clarence Darrow or Perry Mason, get the innocent guy off at the last minute. And he spent most of the rest of his talk telling us about baby killers and mother rapists and all the horrible people we would be defending who were actually guilty. And probably had done way more than they were even charged with. Cruddy bottom feeders, creepy criminals, the worst! But who, nevertheless, were entitled to legal counsel.
By the end of his speech, I knew I wasn’t going to be a lawyer, that’s for damn sure. That guy changed my life. The trouble was, I didn’t know what else to do when my vague little career path veered into the ditch, crashed and burned. Ten years later, I still didn’t. I’d run out a string of dead end jobs, busted up a marriage, run my crummy cars to death, kind of a typical loser story of dereliction, some scrapes with the law, stuff at your tender age I won’t scar you with. I took the last of my pride and the last of my money and I bought a shack with 7 acres down at the South End of Camano Island. Sad backwash of a place, but a place where I could start my life over.
What I’ve learned in the nearly 40 years I’ve been down here, is that you can always start your life over. For me it was about becoming an artist. An artist sees the world a little differently than most people. The point of art, the Only point that matters to me, is re-making the world thru your eyes, your consciousness. You are re-imagining, re-creating, re-inventing, whatever words work for you. What I learned was an artist can remake that world. An artist can reimagine it. Rewrite the narrative of his life. And then, if you’re persevering enough, or very passionate or just plain crazy, you can inhabit that narrative. You stop and think about it, we’re all artists. We’re all creating our lives.
This is what gives art its power, its nobility, its magic. Creation! Embrace that notion. Have the courage to create the place you want to live in. It’s a way more fluid world than you might think.
Have faith! In yourself, in your own creativity, in your own personal vision. It isn’t about success. It isn’t about money. It isn’t about fame. It’s about exploration. Corny as it sounds, life is a great voyage of discovery.
Most of all, have fun. Not all art is built on pain. Make yourself laugh. Make yourself love. Make your life joyful. Why not? Trust an old timer on this, you’re only limited by your imagination. So dream big.
I wish you all the best of luck. I hope a lot of you will pursue a path in art and all of you will create meaningful lives for yourselves. Maybe 40 years from now one of you will stand in front of an auditorium full of young hopeful faces and tell the story of how long ago you listened to some old fart yammer on about his so-called career in art and it made you rethink everything you’d planned and turned your life around and ultimately led you to a long and prosperous career … in Law. The rest of you, good luck!!
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