What's it For?

I don't want to start out too existential–I'd like to save Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Kant for later.  Besides, why should the Germans have all the fun?  Short work weeks, an appreciation for minimalist art bordering on the preternatural, and two-stroke-powered plastic cars.  Isn't that enough?

But, seriously, what is it for?  Life, everything and a blog, that is.  For a blog I suppose it's the urge to be heard, and wanting to connect with a broader community; followed, perhaps, by a desire to be creative in a more generous way than just keeping it in the studio, with the occasional foray to the broader art scene.  I'd like to deal with "life" and "everything" at some other time, as I have to walk the dogs and go to the Farmers' Market in a bit.

Surely, some might say, an artist, like a child in Victorian England, is "better seen and not heard?"  I guess that depends on the artist.  Some are better heard than seen, if their work is anything to go by.

Ideally, I'd like my writer's voice to be as genuine as possible, as uncluttered with instinctively skin-saving evasiveness and self-trumpeting as I can make it.  No doubt this will entail a few expletives, a certain amount of rambling and some vigorous editing, not to mention angst.

So "there it is," as the painter Francis Bacon was fond of saying.  There it is.  And, as I like to say, beginnings are easy, endings take care of themselves, but middles are hard.  I'm also prone to saying "embrace the horror."  And blogging, like cellphones and cable TV, is a kind of horror for me.

But, hey, happy 2009, and welcome to a little bit of Beacon, NY.  I'm off to trudge through the snow and buy some greens.