Recondite

When she says I should bring anything I’m interested in selling I’m not sure what exactly that means.  My portfolio is in the backseat, loaded with the inventory of artwork I start building several years ago on the advisement of my friend Sara who so wisely suggests that when the stars align I’ll want to be ready.  She couldn’t have been more right.

As I pour over the collection of work this university is building I decide “artists’ books” is a broad category, representative of any way an artisan chooses to present her words to the world.  There is a spool wound with ribbon, the story unfurling as the reader unwinds.  Boxes lined in prose unfolding to reveal treasures inside, exquisite bindings of all shapes and sizes housing handmade papers, watercolors and words so much bigger than me.

She wants to buy anything I can bear to part with.  In this statement I glean her understanding of the soul of every artist, aching to share our passion with the world, yet reluctant to strand our humanity in such a harsh and unforgiving place. We contain our creativity within the boundaries of ourselves, conflicted in the knowledge that the very rawness fueling our enormous talent also marks us targets for judgment and criticism we fear we may not be strong enough to endure.   And so we’re tempted to shroud our work in a protective cloak of ambiguity, a deliberate attempt to ensure only those vital few who can see the world through our eyes, respect our truth, are able to interpret the message we’re so desperate to release.

On this day I sell a collection of postcards created in a time and place when I wasn’t quite ready yet to completely put my work out there.  She wants to establish an on-going relationship; she encourages me to finish the sketchbook in progress; she’ll purchase it from me when I’m done. My work will be catalogued, recommended reading, perhaps, by professors looking to inspire and educate on the endless possibilities of artistic expression. I vow to put more of me in this next piece.

There’s a part of me that believes wholeheartedly an artist’s work truly resonates when she’s able to distill it to the exact level of abstruseness which allows every observer to see herself in the words and images.  And so maybe it’s not only the artist who needs to be brave enough to reveal herself in her work, but the viewer brave enough to interpret and face her own truth in that of another.