About this time last year, my family and I were getting ready to head out on a big trip to Europe. Mostly English-speaking Europe (and many folks don't even consider that to be Europe), mind you. But. Mimosa season in Provence - that was pretty extraordinary. You should go sometime.
I wanted to soak it all up, every minute. And the best way I knew how was to spend as much time in as many museums and art galleries as I could. I mean, that's where they put all the stuff that means the most to them, those nations and cities. The stuff that represents what they think of themselves and how they want the world to perceive them. And I went to most of the places I wanted to.
I was alone in my devotion. My family amused me for a time. At about Dublin, the whining started (but you should have seen! Irish peasants fending off the British army with these little makeshift daggers. The nobility and poetry of it all). In Paris, I was just about kicked out of the family (Umm . . . it's Paris. We could sit around the hotel, or we could go out and seize us some world class culture. Given a choice, I'm gonna seize. Even if I have to do it by myself). When we talk about it now, it's kind of like, "Ugh. Mommy and her (sigh) museums."
However. Early in the trip, before I exasperated everyone, we hit the V&A Museum in London and stumbled on to an exhibit that we unanimously agreed was outstanding. I was recovering from my disappointment at the closure of the costume exhibit (that always happens to me!), and was, admittedly, slightly bored of viewing Samurai uniforms and Japanese furniture (I do have a limit to my interest in museums. I draw the line at spoons and bowls - which was where we were kind of at by this point) when we saw it. This. Spider silk. Silk made from the spiders themselves, not boiled up cocoons. You can read more about it here. There was this beautiful cape:
This was just one piece. (I would totally wear this, bt dubs.) There were other things, including spools of threads of the stuff. And a big shawl (or large placemat, depending on what you wanted to do with it). You guys. We've all seen raw silk and dyed silk. Chiffon, duppioni, charmeuse, satin - you name it. All of it chump change compared to this (and I love fabric). It took 1.2 million spiders from Madagascar to make that cape. That's its natural colour. Every strand of it uniform (how rare - uniformity in nature!). Every strand of it strong and light and perfect and golden like what one might imagine the breath of God to be.
So, perfection in art exists. And that can be at once inspiring and crippling. Inspiring, because wouldn't we all love to hit that mark? Crippling, because what if we do all that work and we don't? Or worse, it doesn't land anywhere at all, but dematerializes into the oblivion of who the fuck cares? But think of what we could do if we gave it a good, honest shot.
But 1.2 million spiders. That's a lot of spiders.
My writing mentor, Elise Forier Edie (I wonder if she knows she's my mentor), has been on Twitter a lot lately (I'm becoming increasingly addicted to Twitter), urging us writers to "Dispense with ego. Write the worst crap in the world, but keep writing anyway," and "Let the draft be crappy. Write now, fix later."
I can do that. A far cry from the breath of God, but any start is a step toward something. It's better than nothing (and that's something!). And for those of us who are compelled to create, for whom not creating is hell on earth, this is the perfect advice. It precludes me, personally, from the excuses I manufacture to get myself out of writing ("No one will care" "This isn't going to go anywhere" "If I don't write, the world will be the same - days will continue to give way to nights which will give way to days again whether I write something or not"). It gives us permission to fail, so that in failing, we might have a chance of success. Some day. With something. Maybe even golden, breath of God success.
What's your equivalent to 1.2 million spiders?
PS: I still haven't seen the British Museum and the Pompidou Centre. What are your favourite galleries/museums?
No comments:
Post a Comment