Monday, October 17, 2011

**Flashy Title HERE!** (Or, A Temporal Ordering of Variables)

With my flashy (and boring) title out of the way, now all I need is an opening sentence, preferably one that contains a sweeping generalization, such as “since the beginning of time” or “throughout history”.

Next, we move on to the analogy. But which one?

I could talk about the mixed-media painting I have been working on – you know, the tried 'n' true ekphrastic thing, where I go on about a piece of visual art in order to make a point about art in general, even though what I'm really talking about is writing, cleverly covered over with collage and beeswax.

Or I could reference a deep moment in the Angelina Ballerina video I was sort of overhearing as I cleaned the bathroom yesterday. That way, I could borrow a moral, and no one could accuse me of naiveté because, hello, I got it from a talking mouse.

Option three would be to reference some ultra-exiting personal drama regarding scheduling issues, in order to make a connection between writing and REAL LIFE.

Of course, there's always “All of the above.” A bold move, yes, but worth the risk, because it's a formal solution to a problem of content. It will serve to demonstrate what I am trying to say, without my having to come right out and say it. (“Show, don't tell” – you've heard that one, right?)

Screw it. I'll just tell you. HERE'S THE THESIS: I'm not sure what to do next.

In this entry. In my painting. In my essay. In my life.

I guess, in order for you to see the similarities I see when I look at those four nouns I just put down, I'm going to have to produce at least two portraits with actual noses, you know? So get ready for some details.

I'm taking an art class on Thursday evenings at Portland Community College. Mixed media. I was initially attracted to the class because it was about “getting over inhibitions” and experimenting, not just with paint, but also with photographs and fabric and wax and found objects. A whole bunch of stuff going on all at once. Exactly my sort of thing, in other words.

Here's what I have done to my first “piece” so far: 1) secured three crushed up pieces of cellophane to the canvas with melted beeswax; 2) painted over said pieces of cellophane, and the rest of the canvas, with multiple colors of acrylic paint; 3) drizzled more wax over everything; 4) melted both wax and cellophane with this special blowdryer thing my art teacher showed us how to use; 5) glued pieces of paper on which I had written poetic things onto the white spaces around the cellophane balls that were produced when the plastic shrank from the heat gun, and brushed over that paper with melted wax....

Ok, I'll spare you numbers 6-29. You should just know that, after gluing on berries and bits of tree bark, I doused the whole thing with rubbing alcohol and set it on fire.

This was done out on the rain-soaked balcony, of course, since even at my most destructive I'm still a practical girl. And of course I also had moistened paper towels handy, to beat out the flames, which, what with all the beeswax and tree bark and paper I had going on, were still keeping steady long after all the alcohol had burned off.

You know what's funny? My painting looked a lot better afterward. Even the bits of paper towel that got stuck to the burning beeswax lent a sophisticated “wallpaper” kind of effect.

To sum up: I've been doing random things to this painting, hoping that if I just do enough different random things, it's all going to work out in the end. I'm enjoying the process, yes. But I'm not liking the product. You see, on the whole, the piece still has the same problem it's had from the beginning: a complete lack of composition.

End of Portrait One. Begin Portrait Two, preferably with a sentence alerting the reader to the “compare and contrast” structure here, which, while formulaic, is preferable to no structure at all.


My essay isn't suffering from a lack of composition. It's doing waaaay better in that regard than my painting, and even, I dare say, a fair bit better than this blog entry. (My essay even has a real, as opposed to merely place-holder, flashy title: My Life as a Mail-Order Bride.) However, there's a hell of a lot of stuff I'm trying to do with it, and I've had to invent a completely new form in order to get everything in. Nix on compare and contrast, although there are instances of it in there. Nix on a temporal ordering of variables, because I've got to jump not only into multiple different pasts, but also into hypothetical realms that have no time at all. Nix on placing the narrative somewhere solid, setting a scene and staying with it. Nix on a steady narrative voice to carry the reader through the disjunctions that inevitably ensue during so much travel through time and space, because the whole point of the essay has to do with a kind of Whitmanian proliferation of identity. You know, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

So. Moving from the workable rough draft to a final version that pleases me presents quite a challenge. My skills as a writer, while considerably more honed than my skills as a painter, may or may not be equal to the problem I've set for myself.

The biggest challenge with the essay is that I don't even have recourse to the kind of self-indulgent luxuries I allow myself in my blog. These entries are tutorials, in a way, even if what you take from them is, “Here's what NOT to do!” You get to see what's going on behind the curtain. In my essay, on the other hand, I've got to be all subtle about my technique. I've got to achieve my effects without calling undue attention to all the effort (process) that's gone into making the results (product) seem effortless. Thankfully, this is not an essay, so I can continue to hit you over the head with what we composition instructors like to call meta-discourse: that is, an overt discussion of what I'm doing while I'm doing it. 

Now, if this were a composition of the sort I used to assign to my students, this would be the time to move into some kind of satisfying conclusion. I would gather all those far-flung elements and wrap them up with a purple polka-dotted bow. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to work with this entry. Once again, I have too much going on. My daughter saying, “Help me find my treasure box.” My son and my husband loudly discussing how to set up the internet connection on the new laptop. A weird twinge beginning in my left elbow, and an itch at the back of my scalp. Thoughts about some kind of snack, which lead me straight into thoughts about how I need to start dinner. Emotional residue from a conversation that didn't go well. Cold fingers. Nagging concerns about how the maintenance guys have been messing with the drain in my bathtub all afternoon and I don't know if they've fixed it or what, or whether they might be knocking at the door any minute with a longer socket wrench. The fact that my son has taken my computer mouse, and I'm having to hit the “up” and “down” arrow keys to navigate through my own convoluted prose every time I want to change something.

Enough already. I quit.

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