“i have woven a parachute out of everything broken” or “a definite independence.”
One of my art professors, Ted Prescott, talked in our senior show class on Monday about “breaking away.” Basically, he said he was interested in seeing work that we cared about. Even if that meant work that wasn’t approved of by the faculty. Eventually, every artist needs to break away to make what they care about. He even went so far as to say that breaking away is a healthy thing, a necessary step in the life of an artist.
It made me happy, because that’s been my whole year so far. I’ve spent it feeling combative when people try to direct my work in directions I don’t care about, I’ve answered back with definite negatives, and I’ve spent this year figuring out exactly what I do care about and setting my priorities accordingly.
Nobody can find your artistic path for you. It just isn’t possible. For that matter, nobody can teach you how to be organized or how to be successful at what you do. Every person has to find their own way around to whatever goal they really want. I feel like that’s why graduation is so hard for so many people. Finally they’re spinning their wheels, trying to get to their goal (or to even find their goal) but the path isn’t set out for them and nobody can really give them advice or help them to get there. It’s up to you.
Even with individual projects this is true. Nobody can tell you how to get to the end of a particular poem. You just have to work through the poem until you know what you want and what it needs. And then you have to work through several methods of getting to the goal you’ve determined. Then determine the one you like best or that best achieves your goals.
That’s one of the things I learned over J-term break when I researched Elizabeth Bishop. I went to Vassar College to see her manuscripts and poem drafts and some of her artwork. In her poem drafts, I discovered a mind struggling with breaking away, not just from conventions or prior training or the expectations of professors, but a mind struggling to break away from the previous drafts of a poem until it met her interior criteria for approval.
The least number of drafts I ever saw from Elizabeth Bishop was five, and in most cases the number was closer to 15. With every new draft of the poem she was breaking away from what she thought she had to write to find something that was more truly hers, that was more truly what she wanted or needed or meant to write.
I also learned that she was obsessive and painted with watercolors and has terrible handwriting.
But in any case, this week my manifesto consists of this: avoid histories. None of this “When I started the poem I intended. . . ” or “When I was five I liked to write. . .” or “This professor gave me this feedback and so this is how to piece got to be this way.” No. One must break away. One must say, “This is the object. This is what it means.” And then whatever audience happens to be near can critique as they like. But I reserve the right to politely ignore what they’re saying and do what I feel the pieces need.
Maybe that is erroneous thinking. But nobody can show me my own path, so it’s at least my own mistake. And that makes it a step further along the right path — my path — than anything else possibly could be.
Filed under general, the real world, vocation, art rants | Comment (0)the verb ‘to hymn’
“Come with me to the akathist if you’re missing liturgy,” Professor Perrin said, her Wednesday afternoon punctuated precisely by liturgical leanings. “It’s a service to commemorate the beheading of John the Baptist.” Christine Perrin, lecturer in English, taught my first-year seminar and now advises my senior honors project. She also remembers Italy with me, Italian mass and vespers and the Istituto San Ludovico where we lived in Orvieto.
Today I am having my first meeting with Professor Perrin about this senior honors project: a cohesive body of 20 poems before finals week next spring, followed by a reading of the work. “Bring a mug,” she said, “and a recent poem, and we’ll talk.”
For me, it is the idea of disciplined daydreaming, as introduced into my mind by Professor Perrin’s first-year seminar (she introducted us, tentative first-year students, to Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Rainer Maria Rilke: minds on fire with the surrounding world), that bridges the gap between liturgy and poetry. Both are rhythmic and require discipline, both are bathed in verbal play. And, as so often my struggles to face God are the subject of my poems, my liturgical understanding is the subtext, propelling my search with the belief that metaphor or symbol or simile can be as much an answer as usual church dogma.
In the Eastern Orthodox tradition every service is sung. Even though I’m Mennonite, when I participate in an Eastern Orthodox service I’m engaging a centuries-old attempt to hymn the shape of God. It’s the same attempt that permeates my poetry work. I am creating (according to tradition I’m not sure I understand but which I love) a ritual structure, a rhythm and trying to imbue it with some lively, vibrant narrative.
I’m trying to hymn the shape of God and my own life, too.
After Italy (that phrase seems to find its way into every waking hour of my day; I am defined sometimes solely by being post-Italy), I find that I delight in participating in outward liturgy that reflects my attempts at inward poetic energy.
I especially love participating now that the services are all in English and I am able to clearly see how this narrative liturgy is forceful.
Yes. It works that there is correlation here, between liturgy and poetry. But in the case of poetry, I’ll decline to say “amen,” for the simple reason that I am not done working out this hymn yet.
Filed under general, reflections, tongues, literary reflections, vocation, vitality | Comment (0)countdown: four before doomsday
Did I hear you ask “Mackenzie, what was living in satellite housing like?” (No. I didn’t. But pretend like you did ask, and then I can reply.) Satellite housing is, essentially, sheer awesomeness bottled up in a single domicile.
Last fall, before I left for Italy (a zillion years ago), I lived in Bertram House, a satellite house located at the back of campus. Five girls proposed a “simple living” community, devoted to using resources wisely, observing the sabbath (ridiculously much harder than it sounds) and offering hospitality to professors and other students (we held many crowded tea-times in our kitchen and always kept couchs available for visitors). Knowing that I had no place to live and was going abroad in the spring, they graciously welcomed me as an additional member of the house (and then we were six).
Why am I thinking about Bertram House this week? Most of my housemates from last fall graduated and are out making their way in the world. One of them, Jess, was recently in town visiting and we got together to eat, reminisce, and laugh hysterically (Jess has the best laugh ever). She recently got accepted full-time into the Christian Peacemaker Teams, and will be living in the West Bank (if all goes well) for the next three years.
And so I was thinking: living in Bertram House changed me a lot. Not quite as much as going to Italy, but definitely change happened. A lot of those changes simply stemmed from knowing my housemates and seeing the way they enacted community. We didn’t talk about community a lot, as such; there was no Messiah-speak about service or education, embracing diversity or dialogue.
It was the most profound experience of community I’ve ever had.
Everyone had crazy class and work schedules, but my housemates carved out time to spend in little acts of service towards one another. For example, when I had weeks of being unable to sleep more than 4 or 5 hours a night, someone would step in and take over my day for doing dishes, so at I could worry about one less thing. Or when Jess’s schedule resulted in her never being at home for meals, we always cooked extra food and set it aside for her. If any house member had a problem, time was made to talk without prevarication over how much work needed to be done. We made our cars available to one another when they were needed. We shared computers as needed. When I did a Photography II project centering on our kitchen, my housemates made themselves available for portraits despite their busy schedules.
We never set out to be a house devoted to off-campus service, either, or embracing diversity, but half the house was involved in off-campus service, including tutoring English as a second language, mentoring at-risk youth in Harrisburg, and working at Bethesda Mission. Bethy and Jess both did work at Center for Champions, and they brought the kids home for dinner and games, practicing hospitality without even using the word to label it as such.
We never discussed intentional dialogue as a way of building good community, but Sunday night, regardless of workload, we all gathered for house tea-time. We decompressed about our week, discussed faith, our jobs, the goodness of peach rings and asian cuisine, crushes, life philosophies, motherly penchants for feeding ridiculous numbers of people, and our future plans.
Jess’s future plans involved Christian Peacemaker Teams. I love (and admire) that she really believes there are concrete things she can do that will change some (I’ll go so far as to call it) evil stuff in this world. In her mind, peace is worth pursuing, and she chooses to act in unusual ways and take unusual risks which promote peace. Catching up with Jess and recognizing again her enormous passion and commitment to her vocation is inspiring, particularly as I’m going into my senior year. It’s time to decide on the things most worth pursuing, and it’s time to start pursuing them. Knowing people like Jess? That’s what makes Messiah College worth it.
Filed under general, the real world, vocation, housemates | Comments (2)i was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere when the water filled every hole
Well! Today was an adventure. The photo shoot for the President’s Report happened down in Climenhaga, in Miller Auditorium. I’ve never spent much time on stage down there, but today I did - documenting the documentation, mostly (Donovan Witmer did the photography, Christina Weber organized, and Dan Custer and I took video and photos of the whole photo shoot process). The cover design adopted, as its theme, a conglomeration of faculty, employees, and students ala Annie Leibovitz’s Vanity Fair covers (except without the Hollywood stars).
I learned a lot, hanging out in the wings and running a video camera (or trying to slyly take notes in my sketchbook. Pretty sure I fail at slyness, though). Most of it was just little stuff - the tone of talking to large groups of people that you’re photographing, how planned all that body language that seems so natural is, how much life does not slow down after college - not if you’re a person passionate about what they do. I learned how much equipment you need to get a simple-looking effect, and how much knowledge successful, grown-up people imbibe through years of work (and they just whip it out instantaneously!). Also, I learned that sometimes a photo shoot containing seven people involves just sheer blind luck to get the perfect photo.
What hit me in the face the hardest, though, during my day of aiding the photo shoot (basically as a gopher) is this: I am so little prepared to face the real world. I haven’t got hardly any skills. Like, wow. Also, I lack social grace, which seems to always come in handy.
On the other hand, I felt an immense vitality going into this shoot - so many people with so many ideas and so much experience. You know how some people seem flat and dull, like they just never pay attention? And other people are vibrant and full of vitality, eyes wide open all the time? I want to be one of those vibrant people who’s full of vitality, and I want to be out in the real world acquiring that vitality and vibrant experience.
Sure, I’m not ready to graduate in an actual skills acquired kind of way (I’m sure as heck not ready to face my senior show even!), but I’m ready to graduate in an I want to get out there and learn all this stuff and be kick-butt at what I do someday kind of way.
I guess I just need to be stubborn enough to keep working with what I like even when I feel totally inadequate. And. . . if there’s any character trait I do have in abundance. . . it’s sheer stubbornness.
The End.
Filed under general, photography, the real world, vocation, vitality | Comments (2)