Untitled

I am married to a painter...that's its own book, as yet untitled. One of his hallmark grousings is a resistance to titling his works. He'd really rather not be bothered, thank you.  He is an abstract painter (and a graphic narrative artist and a pen and ink artist) so really  he's not painting (or drawing) something in particular; he is painting something emergent.  I think he might be wary that titles allow the viewer to sum it up and say "yep okay, he nailed it" or "yep okay, stupid rendition" or "yep, okay, I don't get it,"  I think he might suspect this is why they want a title in the first place; viewers of abstract art think there must be a statement in there somewhere, a representation. [Separate essayette someday on our game of  Find the Genitalia in That Painting for all completed canvasses.]

Mark Beebe Original Painting

Some art is representational....or a commentary or a turning point, we know that.  But much art, like Mark's, pours through the artist and he only knows it is...what it is.  Maybe there's a hint of something in there--a dream or mood he's had. There is always the evolution and exploration of what he's doing. Sometimes Mark will title something spontaneously.  But he usually doesn't title until he's in a gallery show. Then with much grumbling and gnashing of teeth he'll invent titles.  At the one of his last gallery shows, he strewed slips of paper and pens below all the paintings, inviting folks to invent their own names.

And people looked a lot longer--a lot. They found their own meanings, came up with whimsy, enjoyment, critique and craziness.  We went through them afterwards and he read one to me  and said "This is a GREAT one."  It was one of mine.  Just sayin'.

When I start a web log, I do it to track some vein of thought that is emergent.  I don't know  what it is about as much as I feel provoked to explore something.  In this case mortality as front and center.  I used to keep journals but found that my most private musings are. Boring. Somehow this genre keeps me more honest...less whiny and self-absorbed.

So my url addresses are wildly different than what I come up with for the page when I "publish" finally.  In this case I realized I was going to write about dying, the possibility of my dying. As if it was, you know, for realz.

But that drama is so very.... dramatic.  One of the modern critiques of art from the critical and curatorial world is that it shouldn't emote.  Emoting, feeling is so 19th century.  Or something like that. Oh and it shouldn't be too pretty.

Mark Beebe--Original Painting

 Frankly, I find that attitude kind of full of shit. And yet, calling a Pollack "a bunch of splatters my 9 year old can do" is also full of shit as is the "painter of light"...at least as something that takes me somewhere with some mystery. There needs to be some "hmmmm?" about art for me to really get captivated.

There is something in restraint, in gesturing to rather than loudly shouting at, in the sidelong glance vs. the soliloquy  That may be why Mark does not like titles--they shout a truncated summary.  Cliff notes are not the book.  Yet, a title can become a part of the poem.  I have played with this across the years and found it maddening and delightful.  A good title opens a door, finds a passageway, creates a mirror reflecting a mirror.  Or simply allows for the "ah!" when the poem/story/song is finally taken in. 

The URL for this set of essayettes is "ofadyingwoman" which at first seemed delightfully soap-opera-ish.  But then it seemed simply cheesy and whiny.  And a bit thick.  And what came to mind when I thought of such melodrama and sappiness?  Jimmy Webb's MacArthur Park, with the cake out in the rain.

Jimmy, who is an emotive yet masterful song writer, had a romance with Linda Ronstadt's sister and they would meet in MacArthur Park where families sometimes left behind birthday cakes from park parties.  So when the romance ended but his heart ached on, Jimmy employed in his lament a central rather odd and now simply "too, too" metaphor for loss. The song was sung in a series of orchestrated movements and thus one of the  best drunken Karaoke songs of the west was born: "MacArthur Park is melting in the dark/ All the sweet, green icing flowing down/ Someone left the cake out in the rain/
I don't think that I can take it/ 'Cause it took so long to bake it /And I'll never have that recipe again, /oh nooooo." And cue soaring string section segue-way. He really does sing "oh noooooo"

When I really considered my position, our position, dears ones, I thought maybe "Bird on a Wire" penned by Leonard Cohen is truer to our situation:

"Like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
Like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.
If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you..."

The balance between the  lament and the excoriating self-aware apologia is a pretty one, I think.  Not a bad metaphoric perch.  This position is sitting exhausted on the train track--too weak to move--hearing the whistle, feeling the vibration, and not yet knowing if there's a switchyard up the line.And not knowing if one cares if there is or isn't.

Mark Beebe Pen and Ink

This is the perfect place to perch--wobbling on thin wire, a drunk in a midnight choir, y'all. You know you're in that choir, too. We've set sail with our map and on all edges--all--there be monsters.  So we're down in the galley belting out the hymns.  Tipsy on whatever.  We are precarious and precious and heedless--bluffing our way through verse two and wondering if we'll be standing by verse five. This is emotive, sure, but it's not pretty, it's...well...beautiful in a terrible, aching way.

The song ends with "saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
He said to me, "You must not ask for so much."
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
She cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

In facing the absurdity of living--of being aware that this is finite existence--I certainly veer between pathos and mythos, Jimmy and Leonard, melting cakes and tilting birds.  Tracing that veer makes me laugh a little and cry a little and then I settle down a bit and decide not to decide....a mood, a story, a title.