“How do we comprehend the stars? In our system, you know, our galaxy — and the next galaxy? But all over there are things happening, not just here on our little planet. I think it’s really useful to think about it, because then if a fire wipes out these paintings, it’s not such a huge, big deal; it’s not so big.”
That’s Jan Wurm, a painter, in conversation with Richard Whittaker.
A fire is wiping out swathes of Los Angeles as I write. According to a Forbes breaking news update, “At least 2,000 homes, businesses and other buildings have been destroyed … so far.”
A friend, a painter, tells me that he burned one hundred paintings. He says his friends were horrified. “Give them to us,” they told him. He shakes his head. “You know, the paintings weren’t really good. I looked at them. I decided they weren’t good. Once I’d burned them I felt relieved. I think it was the right thing.”
It was the covid shutdown that prompted him to do this, he says. He had time to look over his archive and burning presented a way to clear things out.
I confess I was a bit stunned. I am not a burner. I have friends who have burned diaries — one tells me she regrets that now. I have a friend who burns the drafts of her poems. Read biographies and you come across people who’ve burned their correspondence. The burning of diaries and correspondence is motivated at least partly by shame or the fear that secrets will be made public, burning a permanent hiding.
Was there anything of that in my painter friend’s choice to burn his works? He paints frequently so he has many paintings. He did not burn everything. Does he still have hundreds of unburnt paintings?
Much is being lost in Los Angeles. All that loss is involuntary. I look at my shelves of diaries and working notebooks, magazines in which my poems appear, and I know it’s possible that a fire could tear through Berkeley and turn them all to ash. I think about building a fire proof vault. I think about scanning everything, save it digitally — in the cloud? It’s a big job. It’s the sort of mindless job somebody could be hired to do. But then they’d be privy to all my secrets!
When I go through Kent’s things I put aside his writings. Little of it is art. It’s primarily employment law educational materials, newsletters, memos. Some of it is clever, even witty, with Kent trying to make the subject matter fun enough to keep people awake.
What to do with this stuff?
The purging of fire can relieve one of the responsibility of dealing with it all. If it’s all gone, there’s nothing more to worry about. Fire or no, one could just walk away, let fate take it. Usually that means some stranger carting it all to the dump. In a galaxy in which stars explode and planets are shredded by black holes, what’s a few paintings, a few poems?
Jan Wurm says, “One of the reasons I love drawing so much is that it is inherently impermanent. It’s on a piece of paper that’s going to fall apart, and that’s the end of it. It’s very liberating because, in a sense, what you’re doing doesn’t really matter. So you can do anything.”
source:
“The Social Contract — a conversation with Jan Wurm”
Works & Conversations, n.43
(a magazine)
Richard Whittaker, editor
3 comments:
such a beautiful way of thinking via wurm. i agree with this painter very much. even if we took great curatorial care of our work is no means a guarantee of its survival. i think of myself in a vast ecosystem of artists where each of us, by our very existence, help to nurture & grow the webs of creation. in the end, what matters is that we were here in life & art. & that we were active in the creation of our chosen art. we do that & we also nourish all the arts & artists. just as if we were a leafy branch on a massive leafy tree. that is more than enough for me.
The best way to think of art for me is to think of myself as serving it. I cater to its needs -- and it works on mine. In a way its needs come first. What that means in action in the world is not easy to define or describe. It is not good for me to think of my writing as a ticket to fame or fortune, being adored, being remembered. That dream only leads to frustration and disappointment. Lately I've discovered a lot of pleasure in reading my poems to friends over the phone.
i love your last sentence. you have hit the proverbial nail on its head! we are lucky to live in a community of creatives where pleasure is given & taken by not only the production of art, poetry for us in particular, but also by its sharing of it. i think of poetry as an action in the world, whether in word or deed. sharing your poems with your friends over the phone is just that sort of action i have in mind! lately i've discovered my not only reading poetry via printed text but listening to it & watching readings online. poetry is not only a written art form but art that is the actions of sound, body & mind mediated thru language. spoken, written, seen, etc etc!
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