the happy life doesn't make a good story

somewhere along the line i became a bad person to have as a correspondent. possibly, because i've found myself more (many times over) interested in other people's words than my own.

my mom:
Vickie,

Can you save the plastic paddings inside the package I sent you. It may be useful for future use.
Talk to you later.


Mom

my dad (after i sent him a link about the tallest building in the world):
Good. At least Taiwan has one thing which is number 1 in the world. I happen
to be at work. Hopefully I don't have to work on weekend in a couple of
weeks.

emily:
I had no Cause to be awake--
My Best--was gone to sleep--

you, a random boy and conor:
marcella has this crazy friend named dylan, from portuguese class. (he spent senior year of high school as an exchange student in brazil, without speaking the language). he can be kind of, intense. anyway, he knocks on the door today. and with real wide eyes, you know how conor does in pictures sometimes, says, you like bright eyes? me, yeah. then starts talking really quickly about this political thing he's campaigning for, and a lecture series and registering to vote or something. right before he leaves though he says, all serious and monotone, i'm just the medicine you take when you're sick. you get well and that's it. i'm put back on the shelf in your mirror.

god jessica i just want to read for the rest of my life and maybe write some of my thoughts about language and art and i don't know. what it's like to be human and feel strange, that the world is strange too, so i can read them later but not do anything big at all, not really effect any change. sometimes when i read over my own writing all that comes to mind is, oh.

(remember, "it's a wonderful life, if you can find it"?)

Her glory had partly died down

Why am I the only one posting these days, Vicki? Is it the new romance?

Thanksgiving is Thursday; leaving for home tomorrow. There for a week. Why? To do what? I can't remember what I do there. What did I do all summer? Hit my head on the shelf above my bed. Fight with my sister. Read about Sylvia and Ted. Watch cable--have I told you we only get the spanish channels, CNN, C-SPAN and FOX, here. I've been meaning to call Comcast about that (but you know I never will).

I don't know. I'm going to Albuquerque for Christmas and Palo Alto for New Year's, did I tell you? Today in Astronomy we got a call from a telemarketer on the phone near the professor's desk. I don't think I'm going to sell that kid my sediment painting. I miss Fatty. I miss my mom. I have an appointment with Holly. I've been feeling sad about the boy leaving. Still haven't finished The Rainbow, and the quarter's nearly over. We used to always have stories. What's happened to us?

People are hanged; Pictures are hung

#4, originally uploaded by jkeenan.

Will eventually be the last painting for the quarter. Still needs a lot more paint, but you get where it's headed.

--or even a graceful continuation

000_1587, originally uploaded by jkeenan.

And above.

No, not everyone will manage the graceful ending

000_1585, originally uploaded by jkeenan.

I know I know. Yes, art breathes best when it's outside life. Why are you always one step ahead of me? You asked before: why should this matter to me? If it is nothing but something people make, why does it matter? And the answer is, I don't know. I don't know how to preserve authenticity, escape irony. If the artist doesn't show some presumption, what makes people care about the art. When they can just make their own "made thing."

But, new stuff. Sorry for the blur. The still life, above.

on processing

oh, i don't mean to dramatize art but let's face it jess: art has qualities that other things that live in life do not have. you know this. there is a difference between being entertained and thinking about the world. there is a difference between persuasion and nonutilitarian communication. between being reassured and being confused. believing and questioning. are these distinctions important for living life? for working and for loving? i don't know. but i think they're there. is saying art is just something that lives in life a reduction of its possibilities? hm, also do not know. art is just something people make. actually, i rather like that definition. it includes, of course, watches.

here's the problem with approaching drawing as one would writing: the existence of dictionaries. the things that can make writing mundane and utilitarian are the same things that prevent art from being understood. ah, but there are technical drawings as well. blueprints. those diagrams on procedural manuals. there are as many things to be said about understanding the visual field as there are about understanding language. and yet. draw me a picture, jessica. and we'll see how well i do making from your drawing a letter.

jessica, i'm not sure i've made any sense for the last two years. i love the birds. tell me, preferably in list form, what you think is important in life. in your life. in human life.

and god as the process artist

000_1579
Originally uploaded by jkeenan.

I do not, however, know how to make those numbers go away. Or the ugly border.

But a little sparrow, hanging in front of the window with paper-clip-curtains.

evolution as process art

000_1578
Originally uploaded by jkeenan.

I don't think you ever got to see the birds. They're hanging in my room now. I've just spent thirty minutes learning how to post pictures here (I know you probably could have told me how).

the sun has been very excited as of late

You should be looking at the sky every night!, says the astronomy professor.

Myself, I am always worrying for post-graduation. It has become a low hum behind all my other thoughts. Lately I've been thinking it'd be nice to be a painter. I would like to be a painter. But how many people who want to be, get to be?

Why should art get compared to life? Really, I wish you'd stop dramatizing art. It's just art. It's just something people make. Why the pedestal? It lives in life--this is the distinction.

Yes, art is meant to communicate.

You'll see my stuff when I remember to take a picture. Perhaps I will do this tonight? Some sort of mixed media stuff here at the house, but it's a kind of ongoing thing that won't end until the quarter does. Or, maybe I should have been sending updated pictures for you? Anyway, would rather show you the class works.

We should talk writing, too.

oh the world is strange, strange

'was it a casual flight or a migration?'
i've been a bit dopey of late, maudlin what have you. not to be helped. self-conscious in unusual ways. less wondering about art and more worrying about what will become of me post-graduation. i find it difficult to look certain people in the eyes, but i've been smiling more often. there's a wider range of people i see regularly, but i've been sleeping less. it's possible that all the things i think are no good for me. i have to buy a plane ticket to france soon. this week. the other day i meant to call gannett (health center; on my cell's contact list) and nearly called garrett instead.
why the distinction between art and life? is the point of art really to be understood? why haven't i seen any of your work this quarter?

there is no 'art' about them,

they have not been made beautiful, they are beautiful. (robert henri)

Does the process artist lack the confidence to make an intentional art? Or is he humbly stepping aside to make an art more powerful than his own language would allow: an innate art, outside creation.

Process art is the pursuit of a fleeing idea: let the idea be your guide. Yet, this idea will be lost if you don't follow it. If a tree falls--