" . . . For it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength."
- Mosiah 4:27
Several months ago when I had my heart problem, something clicked inside - a kind of warning buzzer telling me that I had to change my way of seeing things. In this column, I have shared with you the perspective of that change, of how I wanted, with whatever time I have left, to savor things more.
What I have learned since then is that when that buzzer goes off, it really is just a warning, it is not a commitment to change. Change is something that has to happen on a deeper level - not the flashing of a buzzer but the more tangible and deliberate turning of a knob.
One of the things I realized, for example, was that I spend a lot of time tailoring my creative output to fit well into others' impressions of what art is. Which is OK. But as you might identify yourself from your own experience, meeting others' expectations often leaves little time to focus on some of the things you savor most.
So I talked to Dave Ericson, who shows my work in Salt Lake City at Gallery 56 on 400 South, and told him I would like to have an exhibit of my paintings and assemblages - those aspects of my work with which many people are not familiar. They are not as readily "readable" as my bronze images of children, which are only one corner of what I enjoy working on.
So we set a date, far enough in the future that it seemed it would give plenty of time to get a show together. The date for the opening would be Sept. 20, a not unattainable goal.
But that isn't how it worked out. One of my strengths is the breadth of expression my work encompasses. But as you might identify with, often our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses.
Along with my interest in a broad range of mediums comes a tendency to try to express too much. A hard lesson for me to learn has been that my most valuable tool is a pair of pruners with which to snip off the ideas and images that keep popping up. Too many random branches can make the final fruit puny.
My problem is that I don't prune often enough, and, as with the exhibit I set up with Dave, instead of trimming to finish what I already had in the hopper, I used the date as an excuse to start whole new projects.
Last week it all came to a head. I kept thinking to myself, what is going on here? I set this thing up so I could start to savor things, and here I am going around with twice the pressure . . . pressure I don't really need, completely defeating the purpose of the show in the first place.Veloy had designed a nice invitation for the exhibit and we were running around trying to get photos taken for it; I was starting to feel crazy, staying up late and getting up early to tie together all the new pieces I had started. It wasn't fun at all, and I knew it wouldn't get any funner.
One day, Veloy and I were talking with Mary Kay Lazarus, who was working with us to integrate the show as a benefit function for The Children's Center. I felt so awkward because I had started to build up people's expectations - that is, those who had become invested in the exhibit. For most everybody else, it wouldn't make any difference. But it was so hard to back away once the ball was rolling.
As we were talking with Mary Kay, a fragment of scripture kept coming to mind, where it says something about not walking faster than you can run.
I think that's when the knob got turned.
As hard as it was in my mind to let it go, we canceled the show, and, immediately, I felt better.
And the last few days have been so nice! Suddenly I am able to see how I tend to jam more sand through the hourglass than will go and how trying to force it only plugs up the opening.
Suddenly I am respecting myself enough to truly value the things I am doing, not just with my work but with my family and friends. The night before last we went up to American Grill for our neighbor Gwen's birthday. We sat out on the patio area, four couples, and just talked while the sun went down, and somewhere inside I was enjoying it much more than usual. Somewhere, a knob had turned.
As to the paintings and assemblages . . . I am putting my ideas on a waiting list. I'm going to finish one thing at a time. That doesn't mean I can't make notes, that I can't get excited about new things, but it does mean that I am more realistic about what I can actually accomplish.
My goal this week is just to finish one of the 20 or so assemblages I was going to have in the show. Titled "I Have Not Gone Far," it is a strange piece. It doesn't have a base fashioned from oil-rubbed walnut or polished stone. It sits, instead, on a rocker thing that I picked up somewhere (I think it might have rocked cream or ice cream), on top of which is attached a partly stripped-out assembly from an old transmitter that I picked out of the junk at Salt Lake Instrument Co.
The thing that is neat about the transmitter is that up through the middle of it is a stainless steel tube (it reminds me of an old silo, like the ones in my paintings that are like conduits bridging the gap between heaven and Earth), and on the front of the tube is a jagged red lightning bolt.
On top of all this is a slab of compressed gypsum or slate with a hole in it, painted with an eerie blue cast that reminds me of the blue in Fra Angelico's skies. There is a hole through this, like a hole into whatever is on the other side of night, and beyond it I have placed a neat old tube with mercury glistening on the inside - a silvery, glass, godlike image that I found at Outpost Antiques in Lehi.
Down at the base of the silo is this little plastic guy that I got at a swap meet. He is holding two semaphore paddles like they use to wave in planes, only I have bent him a little so he is looking up, frantically trying to make contact with someone somewhere above him.
Nestled in the front of the machinery is a little piece of paper clipped from an old Boy Scout book with four little drawings of trail messages with the title, "Telling a story with branches and twigs." The first shows a single stick, and it says underneath, "I am going east." The second has a short upright stick on one end of the long stick and it says, "I have not gone far." The third shows the short stick on the other end and says, "I have gone far." The fourth has five little sticks and says, "Gone five days' journey."
But the heart of the whole sculpture happened when I placed a frosted glass light from Deseret Industries down in the heart of the rocker in which I put a tiny light from a night light. With a piece of smoked Plexiglas in front, sanded frosty to defuse the light even more, it glows from within like the soul of the Earth, a hint of magma (I think of my father's heart).
So the whole universe tips back and forth like the deck of a ship and there is not much we can do. We wave our little flags, struggling for a flash of response from somewhere to help us through the fog.
In one sense, we have not gone far, because we have learned so little about the simple meanings of life - and we learn so slowly. In another sense, that we have not gone far should be a calm assurance, because we might, in reality, be closer to home than we give ourselves credit for.
I think I am finally learning, at the age of 54, that it's going to be all right, that I don't need to impress anybody, that it's OK to enjoy the trip.