Writing and memories.

I have been grappling with writing ever since I had my first assignment in grade school, whenever that was. I have a vague recollection of having a guest speaker in my english class around 5th or 6th grade? The speaker was someone who was a past student of my teacher's who had gone on to be a writing major in college and had just won some special award. She came in and read one of her pieces to the class. It was very free associative and told a clever tale that wound around and tied itself up nicely in the end. I remember liking it and feeling really inspired and excited to write something along those lines.

I must have been 10 or 11? The class had the rest of the period to write and then we were going to turn stuff in the next day and the guest would come back and read the ones she liked. Mine got picked. I don't remember what I wrote but I really thought I nailed it. Well, I was so excited that I saw them holding my paper as they called me up to the teacher's desk. Was I going to have to read it to the class? Maybe I was a prodigy they were going to encourage my now beginning literary journey!!??

I quickly realized that this was not my big break. The teacher held up my paper and just asked me "What was this?" Her voice was in the tone of total disappointment and you might be going to detention. She read parts of it out loud. Now the whole class was paying attention... I remember it being personal, and I had put words and ideas down that I had never done before. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to talk about any of it. I do remember the waves of humiliation after bearing my tiny 11 year old soul in words on paper and having two adults judge my soul and declare it shit (my impression). The teacher didn't yell at me but she made it clear I totally missed the assignment as she dismissed me from her desk. I remember feeling as though I was stabbed with a burning stake repeatedly as I noticed all the sly smiles and side eye I was getting from everyone in the class as I walked back to my seat.

In that moment my entire head and neck was burning of embarrassment, I wanted to be anywhere but in that class, in that school or even on Earth! It was pretty awful. The next day there was more writing assignments and class went on. The teacher never mentioned it again, and no one else ever said anything. I still wanted to write any weird stuff that came to mind.

Drawing in the old sketchbook.

I was sixteen when I got a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts. It was a six week summer program held at Bucknell University. I was one of the youngest kids that made it. Along the way I met a guy named Phil Bonner. He was a year or two older than me and I thought he was one of the most creative people I had ever met in my 16 years. He was a comic book artist in the autobiographical/Robert Crumb/Zap comics channel of comics. But Phil was almost always tripping on acid but I was too unaware to realize this at the time. I did think he behaved pretty strange sometimes but he produced some entertaining stories. He was also obsessed with the movie Eraserhead directed by David Lynch, and the prose of Brother Theodore.

I was an empty vessel waiting to be loaded with the goo of creativity. I knew that I would need to learn how to come up with new images that no one else could come up with if I wanted to be an artist for a living. I spent so much time in my life trying to figure out how to be a source for new ideas instead of borrowing other’s. Phil seemed to have found the secret and I wanted to be in his circle of friends and participate in drawing from this magical pot of creativity. Also, he just accepted my ideas and was always encouraging which no one in my friend group did.

A book I read around this period was “On the road” by Jack Kerouac. Every pre-goth, pre-trenchcoat, outcast kid in suburbia seemed to read that one. The Jim Morrison bio “No one hear gets out alive” was the other one. I think from there the books branched out depending on more personal interests. I realized as I was reading these books that artists need to experience things, many things, in order to come up with the ideas for their art.

At 17, I really didn’t have any significant life experiences yet. I grew up in a pretty plain suburban world. The family didn’t travel. We camped in a tent a few times a summer and that was the major majority of my “away from suburbia” experiences. There was a trip or two to Niagara Falls and when I was 12, we went to Florida. Looking back, I think I am fortunate that I had such a stable upbringing. Mom and Dad are still together, I didn’t go through any scary traumatic events. I was now pissed, at 17, that I didn’t have any drama in my life! I know that is what everyone is shooting for but I wanted to be a great artist goddammit!

Sketch pad drawing. My own personal joke. I like to put something shocking or unexpected in my sketchpads. Then when random person at a coffee shop of bar asks to look through my pad I just hand it over and wait. Always a good laugh.

I’m 57 now. I have lived in New York City since 1990. I have accumulated some character. I’ve had a bunch of different jobs. I’ve been married and divorced. I’ve had loved ones die. I have traveled. I also try to learn new things. Emphasis on “try”. And I also have the good fortune of health.

I write now and I wrote when I was a high schooler. I’m pretty sure I’m the same person. Meaning, I still look at my environment and experiences today the same way teenage me looked at things. But that accumulation of experience just spikes the thoughts with a wisdom that you can’t just look up and use. I’m not breaking any new ideas here, go figure, experience life and you will be a fuller person. You still might be dumb as a rock but you’ll be a fuller dumb rock. It can be a subtle character(?) to what an artist creates. My wisdom accumulation has also seeped in to how deeply I look or experience art. This helps me in another part of this wisdom and that’s the ability to pick up on how art is made. Like maybe I’ll notice that a painting was done by someone who was left handed. In college I could walk through the painting lab and pretty accurately tell the gender of the artist if not who exactly painted it.

I think I’m still writing about writing right? I still stink at this. Thank you if you made it this far. You are truly a hero of heroes. I want nothing but good for all… Sure Fred, that’s not a tall order at all. Why not wish for World Peace and cover everything ??? And for everyone who wishes, why wouldn’t that always be the go to wish? And any-who, talk to you all next time.