Post number 3 for my Principles of Art and Design class…
…I should want to show by my work what is in the heart of such an eccentric man, of such a nobody [as I am in the eyes of most people]. This is my ambition, which is notwithstanding everything, founded less on anger than on love, founded more on serenity than on passion. It is true that I am often in the greatest miser, but still there is within me a calm pure harmony and music. In the poorest huts, the dirtiest corner, I see drawings and pictures. And with irresistible force my mind is drawn towards these things. More and more other things lose their interest, and the more I get rid of them the quick my eye grasps the picturesque things. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and a continuous observation.
—Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo, July 1882
1. What interests you to the point of being drawn to it with “irresistible force?”
As strange or random as this sounds, I REALLY like murder mysteries. My favorite TV shows (besides Doctor Who) are Bones, NCIS, and The Mentalist. I just can’t get enough of them! I love it when all the little clues come together for the big reveal. And I think a part of me is fascinated with the reasons WHY they did it. What went wrong in their life that made them so twisted that they would kill? I also love that, in the TV shows, the good guys always win. They always figure out who did it and bring them to justice. It’s awesome! It is unfortunate that reality isn’t the same.
2. What would you like to be interested in but life has kept you just on the perimeter?
I wish I read more for fun. School for the past 16 years has kept me from reading almost anything for pleasure, Harry Potter excluded. I have been reading Lord of the Rings for almost 3 years now, and I’m barely halfway through. I have too many other pressing things to do, and when I have free time, my brain is so fried that I loathe the idea of focusing on a book and would rather watch a movie or simply sleep.
3. What can make you need to create?
Taking a different look at the word ‘create’: when I feel really stressed or have had a lot to do for a while, my apartment usually gets… disheveled. I think what that drives me to do is to ‘create’ order. To take a mess and make it clean. Also, when I am really frustrated, I sometimes feel the urge to get dirty making violent, active art (using charcoal or paint). When I am overcome with God’s majesty and glory and perfection, I will sometimes write my thoughts in my journal, and they often sound like Psalms.
4. What does being creative mean, or look like to you?
Being creative to me is taking what you have and making something new. Creating new order from a mess, making messy art from simple supplies, or taking my thoughts and my feelings and writing them down to make poetry.