Rapperswil by the lake (Mixed media)

Day 88.

Being of an artistic bent is an all consuming plight. No clocking in or out. The preoccupation is constant. That doesn’t always equate with stream lined industriousness. In my case I find it a hindrance to productivity. Not knowing where to start or how to adroitly harness the beast being my greatest obstacles to manifesting that which roars to be born.

The work is in grappling with that and what that involves. I am the work and the work is me. I can’t shut myself off to create instead I have to align myself in a way that the work flows out of  me and this is an ongoing and deeply mysterious battle of sorts.

It is a process of  breaking down and reassembling continuously. Allowing all things to exist to become the force of creation being always in flux,a part of everything and nothing at once.

It all takes time. The practice of creating is incorporated into the stream. The rewards come in unexpected ways.

Henry Miller put it thus:

“I didn’t lack thoughts nor words nor the power of expression— I lacked something much more important: the lever which would shut off the juice. The bloody machine wouldn’t stop, that was the difficulty. I was not only in the middle of the current but the current was running through me and I had no control over it whatever.”

The photo is of a breakfast painting of Rapperswil in Switzerland where I spent a memorable afternoon in 2013.

Sitting at the table feeling relaxed and amused in the company of my good friend Monica, the remains of a fine feast before us I was inspired and saw in the debris the church tower, clouds and the hill beneath the blue blue sky.

The Human Jukebox (Video)

This is something that came out of me in 2013.

2013 began with the following prounoucement in The Sunday Times Style magazine:

It had a ring of prophetic truth to it. Being the slippery fish that I am I took heed of the words. I engineered a road trip through the United States. Something I’d been sitting on since my teens.

I talked my Cousin David into partaking in the venture. The doing of it all unlocked some sort of secret. The realisation that I was making possible something unimaginably cool just by taking steps was almost unnerving. If this was possible then what?

When I asked him initially I was trying out the idea. Could I do something so wild and fun just for the sheer longing of doing it? I sensed it could.  Next the question whether I was ready to do try ?  Sure as hell I was.

The plan was to meet in New York. Hire a car there and drive it down to New Orleans where we would hang out for a week or so. The car was to be despatched once we hit our destination and both of us had our return flights booked to fly out of New Orleans within hours of each other.

Besides that very little else was planned

The route we opted for took us south west through Virginia, down into the deep south into Tenessee, then Mississippi and finally into Lousiana and New Orleans.

We made four stops and took six days to make the trip.

Our first two stops were motorway stops in Virginia. Longer stops were made in Nashville and in Memphis.

At the time of inception it occurred to me to make a video record of the adventure. It seemed important.