Next to the pastures of incompleteness lies a neighboring field, too, that has to do with aspiration and learning and, well, failure. Closely allied with the hanging-ness of incompletion. Take a look at Peter Schjeldahl's essay in the June 13 New Yorker (pp. 72-73). It's titled "Scaling Up" and tells of Schjeldahl's relishing of "the abundance of relatively -- and poignantly -- dud paintings in 'At the Dawn of a New Age: Early twentieth-Century American Modernism,' at the Whitney Museum." Schjeldahl sometimes flares up too brightly in his prose (I always forgive him!), but his observations are consistently sound and interesting. Like: "It is a fact of the art-loving experience that serious but failed ambitions teach more about the tenor of their times than contemporaneous successes, which freeze us in particular, awed fascination." And: "When something doesn't quite cohere, you can see what it's made of." Incompleteness, like aspiration, reveals.
"Great art represents reality just as much as it conceals it." This sentence, among many others, made me stop reading to drink it in. That sentence is great art. Loved this piece!
There's incredible strength in being able to live life to the fullest even amidst all of its uncertainties. I wish I were better at it. I don't really try to control it, or understand it, but living productively through it is another thing altogether. I'm curious, Josh, if you don't mind sharing, does art and writing help for you?
Next to the pastures of incompleteness lies a neighboring field, too, that has to do with aspiration and learning and, well, failure. Closely allied with the hanging-ness of incompletion. Take a look at Peter Schjeldahl's essay in the June 13 New Yorker (pp. 72-73). It's titled "Scaling Up" and tells of Schjeldahl's relishing of "the abundance of relatively -- and poignantly -- dud paintings in 'At the Dawn of a New Age: Early twentieth-Century American Modernism,' at the Whitney Museum." Schjeldahl sometimes flares up too brightly in his prose (I always forgive him!), but his observations are consistently sound and interesting. Like: "It is a fact of the art-loving experience that serious but failed ambitions teach more about the tenor of their times than contemporaneous successes, which freeze us in particular, awed fascination." And: "When something doesn't quite cohere, you can see what it's made of." Incompleteness, like aspiration, reveals.
"Great art represents reality just as much as it conceals it." This sentence, among many others, made me stop reading to drink it in. That sentence is great art. Loved this piece!
There's incredible strength in being able to live life to the fullest even amidst all of its uncertainties. I wish I were better at it. I don't really try to control it, or understand it, but living productively through it is another thing altogether. I'm curious, Josh, if you don't mind sharing, does art and writing help for you?