Tonight I was writing in a journal, something I used to do almost obsessively at different periods in my life, but haven't much for years, except for poem and short writing piece ideas. And I ended up starting one thing and then morphing into something that is perfectly titled in a parody of the great James Joyce book 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,' - I thought I would share it with the small group of you who actually read this. I wrote the first go at the draft of this entry to Talking Heads' wonderful album 'Fear of Music' - as a bass player, I can say it often doesn't get any better than listening to Tina Weymouth...
It all started when I scrawled some shit like this in the journal, Sunday December 1st, 2019, SE Portland, Oregon.
It seems cliche, but life is an endless learning experience, but it's like trying to jot down thoughts along the way using your only pen [and] it, running out of ink...Invented time marches on...
Then it went a different direction, and after I finished it I titled it:
'Self-portrait of the Artist as a Relatively Young Man,'
I am always writing...But, as an art form, writing doesn't obsess me as much as music or especially visual arts...It ain't the same drug, but that doesn't mean I don't dig it, double negatives aside. Writing is very important to me, though, and there is no way in heaven, hell or in-between could I maintain sanity without it [again, I exaggerate here a wee bit!] It is the obsession on slow simmer, always bubbling underneath. I always do it more [writing] than I realized at the time, that is when I examine the whole of it globally after some years have passed.
Since I was a child, I have always been an observer, and this is the chief driver of a creative mind, behind only obsessiveness...and it comes back to the observer...the driver of collecting things, movements, mannerisms, ways of speech, it matters not if the artist can't see, she is [an] observer through her ears, can't hear, collects all with his eyes, and so on. Obsessive observers, all. Same with songwriters, even instrumental ones, the moods are from living with and observing humans, while always being painfully aware, especially when said humans reveal their ugly sides, that we are also human; Obsessive observers of humans that are human...
...It gets inside us [the desire to create], like some virus, makes a home in our psyches, our very bones, and our obsessive natures process it all at excessive speeds inside, demanding to be let out from within the confines of our beings, to be thrown into the physical world, a smear, a dance, a primal yell, controlled vibrations of instruments, vocal cords, a confession of the shimmering universe around us.
Tarkovsky, the great film maker, wrote of what I write of here as the desire to create being like a seed inside the artist that grows within them, becomes part of them, can't be ignored, that has to be exposed.
I agree with this [it] is more elegant than my virus metaphor...I have felt this, all of the above, since I was conscious. I don't remember a time when I didn't feel a drive to make something that didn't exist and [that] was important mostly on an emotional level.
I fell into this 'Self-portrait of the Artist as a Relatively Young Man' while just scrawling random thoughts into a journal. But the stairs won't sweep themselves.
Wayne Ray Flower II
12/1/19
Love to Folks and Critters...
All photos by Wayne R. Flower
I met Luna the other day, she was so sweet
Denni the ballerina
10710707
PDX from the Hawthorne Bridge (click to see bigger version)
"Paint this side of the building."
"What color?"
"What color?"
"I don't care. City says paint the building, so paint the building, Picasso."
I wish I had a better camera here, this was by the train tracks, someone had put up on little stands these cool lit up orbs, one was an eyeball, they were so cool, such a magical little moment to find them on the way to the bus. They were gone the next day.
