Weekend Artistry

Back to Kerouac’s 30 Essentials on a Monday.

#17 – “Write in recollection and amazement for yourself”
#15 – “Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog [for them]”

A weekend trip, seeing things out of season is the muse. It’s the first time for the hundredth time I’ve been to Grand Rapids: my only goal is to make amends and see things in an open-mind for probably the first time in a place with so much innate divide between the two athletic rivals.

To explain it, maybe, the Quality (Pirsig) metaphor of the café visit we make to Brewed Awakenings on Saturday. I had never been in, and described it as “slightly Mexican-looking.”

T.B said it looked “contemporary,” while Annie described it as “makeshift whilst having settled into home.” A hometown native, she had walked in, ordered and enjoyed the local coffee shop environment many times – but perhaps had not been asked to come up with a written impression for the first time with prior exposure. Deepening the question of Quality and gumption was Lindsay, a former barista of the shop, said it reminded her of something “adobe-esque” after we had read off our list of agreements over the phone. Why write down the appeal of the shop in the first place? First, it challenges everyone to live in the moment and be aware of the synthesis of our emotions and senses. Not to force those involved in the moment to think that everything they’re doing is being secretively noted or put on the spot but explanatory to those around a writer to get a sense of that inner dialogue – to see the story of the unfolding action spent in intimate company.

Second, the reason to capture the aesthetic is part of a sensitivity to creativity and being able to ask the right questions; absorbing newness (especially for the first time) has ultimately changed the way I approach writing and ultimate projects for the future. I accept that most writing probably is just adding to information glut – but some has come back, useful (and amazing) to what was going on around me at the time and what I can make useful now.

For example, what good is it to write semi-sober, semi-lush while exploring the human condition in the bars of Grand Rapids? The three of us went about doing it in three of four realms of modern life: the social, the public, and the private (though probably not the political). The social element, mixing with others and sharing their presence to the public; the world is now (right now) aware of our presence there. Private, as we had a wonderful condition of anonymity about us, giving us discretion to remain a triplet of entertainment to each other as we desired. More or less, we were there …

Back to sensitivity of creativity. Tom Page, Annie’s dad (and 3-D artist) said the food cabinet was “a work of art.” It’s only apt to describe the aesthetic in both form, and function, very succinctly. Take a part of the whole and break it down into something manageable, and meaningful. His artwork is displayed in the town – in a style left rough but precise to form and detail. He’s imaginative but truthful in his work on capturing emotion in his bronze sculptures.

The next day was nature’s art: islands, sandbars, and a nesting goose and three large eggs being incubated. The mother goose honked until her mate arrived. Next was meditation in the heat of the pines, the act imprinting things to my mind and mixed with the unique smell the needles make when struck with sun leaves a blend of memory, first impression and desire for similar future for others. As we try to contemplate our lifestyle choice now, and in the future … To live in a place with cascading iron-ore tailings, red dust, and it gets onto hands, notebooks, faces as youth and today, temperate, as twenty-somethings talking about our lives as we explore the future together. A community, we’ll approach it one day at a time; making sense of it.