November 24, 2010

Today I was asked if I thought certain items of my writings were poems. I replied that I thought they were a bridge between poetry and prose.

Specifically, when I write – or speak – I start off saying something I want to say. Prose. At some point – frequently – I am saying what wants to be said! Poetry.

Actually, it’s the same with painting.

I guess I am saying that to be an artist is to be willing to start the – dance, statement, picture, dialogue – and to ALSO be willing to have the process taken over by a deeper, more eternal process and to allow oneself to be the vehicle.

I am willing. Much of these writings have been about the history and the flavour of that willingness.

I met the only man I have married and divorced in 1980. Laurence and I were friends for seven years before our two years marriage. Laurence was very interested in how I think. He would ask me questions and very often my answers came from some fount of knowledge or experience that I was unaware of before I heard the question. When we broke up among the elements of our relationship that I missed the most was this searching dialogue that revealed to my own self a well of understanding that by myself I don’t typically access.

Both Gabor and Mike have this effect on me, each in different ways. This has the magnifying result that WPIT is moving from being a concept I could barely articulate in 2006 to being an organization with new and growing capacity.

I have a similar experience when I am speaking in public. This week I have spoken to a class of about 20 student nurses and another of about 30 student video game creators. In the first class I presented by myself and I went into the “zone” shortly after the introduction and was essentially there for about forty-five minutes. In the second class I was part of a presenting team of 3. Zoning in didn’t occur until we were bantering back and forth with the students and later in the parking lot with the professor about what an inclusive video game might look like.

I usually can’t remember what I said after such situations. I am always glad of the times when someone has written down or videoed such moments so I can find out how I came across and what I actually expressed. Painting, of course, is better for leaving behind a more permanent record of what “Judith as vehicle” has been up to!

I am not saying that I am some kind of psychic or medium. As I have written before, it is more like I am personally involved in the creation of an articulated or painted expression yet the ultimate source is connected to me from beyond me.

So now “the cat’s out of the bag”. There are at least a dozen people who read these writings and they all know by now just how weird I am.

As if they didn’t know already!