Upcoming Zine: How Should We Then Live?

Yes, yes–yet another work-in-progress has come into being. The others are still Coming Soon, but this wild one pushed and shoved to the front of the line—insisting on my time and energy.

I will share the current iterations of pages of this new zine with you—here—and hope they will stir some emotion in you—engender something of value that may be of some use as you traverse this wild and wonderful, albeit worried world.

Clutching a Red Horse

The cover image is torn from Marc Chagall’s Self-Portrait with a Clock in Front of Crucifixion (1947), sans clock or crucifixion—a lush, decontextualized self-expression of himself clutching a red horse. I found this and other worn but surviving postcards of Chagall paintings among my late sister’s papers, and see—they are ruthlessly situating themselves into my different works-in-progress (they all seem to involve her to varying degrees).

Although we are both art lovers and she was a museum guard for many years at the Walker Art Center, I don’t recall ever discussing art with her. Instead, we usually wasted time drinking beer at the Leaning Tower of Pizza or The Red Dragon, worrying the horrid matter of our respective relationships, experiences, and memories of our young years to no good end— my sister’s death—four months ago to the day—and here I am picking it up again. I blame my therapist, as it was her idea that I try writing—writing about what I can’t seem to get sorted—what I can’t wrap my head around––-how my mother failed to come to my sister’s bedside when she was dying. My sister asked for only two things: to be included in all conversations about her care, and to not be left alone. This is the raison d’etre of this work—to try to make sense of where we went wrong–if that’s a thing in a world of absurdity.

How Should We Then Live?

The title of my work is an echo of Francis A. Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live?—a truly dastardly book that seeks to shame us for being humanists, rather than deists–specifically the Judeo-Christian brand–that was touted in “my other life” (the subject of my work-in-progress entitled The Hard Job). While I have no appreciation for the content, the title has haunted me for years. To a fairly significant degree, all of my works ultimately bleed together. Can you pick up on the recurring themes?

Art as Antidote

In reading about Chagall, I found this quote and it rang so very true for me. Over the decades, many therapists have cautioned me, and challenged me to share my feelings—apparently, I am chronically guilty of the sin of intellectualization–which is one of the notorious defense mechanisms and is a bad, bad thing—at least if I am going to make any progress in learning to understand and deal with my emotions…

Collage-making

Here is where collage comes into play: Art is the antidote to my chronic intellectualizing. When I do collage (which I have been doing for nearly 35 years), my third eye takes the lead, and my curious mind follows along as the shore draws a line along the waving sea. As I work, images and words mingle and play, creating a safe space for my feelings to shake out. This is how I connect the dots.

It’s not just the mother-wound that hurts, there are other pains—some matter-of-course, yet nonetheless achey-breaky; some too grievous and unspeakable—some too perennial to bear. All of these are on my mind, and my heart, as I write.

Dig Deeper

I am trying to get at something—dig deeper. I am ever reminded of Eustace in C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage and the Dawn Treader when he struggles to free himself from the thick knobbly flesh—“the beastly stuff” of the dragon-he-has-become, and requires Aslan’s assistance to peel away more than the thin surface layer, which is all Eustace could manage on his own:

Hard to share

It’s hard to be honest about what hurts—if I tell you–I am afraid you will use it against me–yeah, it’s that facile. My instinct is to keep it for myself—the fuel that drives me—knowing the truth and keeping it from you—in my head—is where my power is—holding it close and deep. Not saying anything—just bearing my teeth in a smile—but okay, here it goes—let me try and get at what shall not be formed, or spoken, or shared—my therapist says: Share to be heard, share to be known. Do I even want to be known?

A Few Pages…