Huzzah

As I read her message the ground I’m walking on becomes where I stand:  “The library would buy some of your work to add to our growing collection of ‘artists’ books’.”   Yes, that’s “buy” and my “work” in the same sentence.  Thanks to a dear friend who not so long ago landed her dream job in the stacks of a private university and our digitally connected world, the woman responsible for curating this collection is able to fall in love with the work I donate to The Brooklyn Art Library and request to purchase more like it.  I’m still pinching myself three days later.

The idea sends my head spinning with new possibilities.  And so I begin to research this genre. According to The Artists’ Press, “Artists books are limited edition art works that are produced by an artist or by a collective and that have aspects of handmade work in them.”  It’s my enigma of perpetual struggle finally solved; I’m perplexed by how I might put my art into the hands of many without surrendering its weathered fidelity to the polished precision of mass production. Have I stumbled on nirvana?

Here’s the thing about going after our dreams:  When we’re brave enough to put what’s buried within our souls out into the world, no matter how impractical or implausible it may seem, the world finds a way to receive it.  Exactly as we intend it to be because that’s what makes it ours.

The deal is sealed for me when I click on this writer’s piece about the value of journaling. He quotes Pulitzer Prize winning author  David McCullough, who says “if you want to become the voice of your generation, write a journal entry every day and then gift it to your local university library at the end of your life.”  All at once I know who I want to be.

 

A voice of my generation; and it starts now.