The Supreme Pleasure of Nothingness

Here this morning,
at a cafe table cluttered with the New York Sunday Times,
A Hostess Fruit Pie wrapper 
And the remants of a letter just penned
To a long-gone friend,
I pay my guarded respects
to a warm-and-muggy Sunday
In the Merry Month of May,
With leaves everywhere blushing green
And flowers preparing their tightly folded petals
For a fragrant  walk along the Runway --
A dance of spendor in the grass --
As I sit and write --
To you or anyone else who will listen --
And realize that for one sweet evanescent moment
I can think of nothing that worries --
Nothing that terrifies,

Chilule: The Supreme Pleasure of Nothingness -- Photo by Ross

Nothing that intimidates,
Nothing that disappoints --
Nothing, that is, except 
The Godly Warp and Woof
Of my unpredictable existence
In which I wait for the pendulum to swing
Either upward toward Nirvana 
Or downward toward  the dreaded bowels of Hell --
Resigned to pack up my things,
Suspend the gnashing gears
Of my incessant thinking,
Go off to work
And let Chihule do the talking.


            Ross Bachelder
           5 20 12

Intimidation: Picasso and Bachelder Together

What on earth has gotten into me? 


Whatever has possessed me this morning to have the audacity to put a drawing of mine on the same page with a drawing by Pablo Picasso, one of the 20th Century's most gifted masters of the line?


It's not because I think I've earned the right to belong to Mr. Picasso's legendary Charmed Circle of gifted artists -- not at all. After all, this ridiculously precocious, enormously capable, profusely productive, ever-evolving savant of the imagination has intimidated tens of thousands of aspiring artists -- people who have looked at his several decades of master drawings and yearned to cup the glowing firefly of his fierce creativity in their hand, if even for one magical, ephemeral moment. 


I have most emphatically stood among those legions of The Easily Intimidated, blushing inwardly at the crazy incongruity of any sort of proximity to this man of incendiary intellect and protean energy. To even think of myself in context with the man seems an act of utmost absurdity, wrapped in self-denial and cushioned by specious arguments like "If only I had had HIS upbringing!" or "Guys like him, pampered and privileged, had the TIME and MONEY to get where they got!"


And yet...


And yet I must confess that as a proud and devoted disciple of the New England Transcendentalists -- I studied them, passionately and idealistically, in graduate school --  I am required by the laws of decency and proper acknowledgement to live the values they espoused, including the one value I have cherished the most in the years since my immersion in Emerson and his ever so erudite Concord companions: the supremacy of THE INDIVIDUAL over what a modern-day thinker might describe as "groupthink" or a certain crippling conformity to whatever philosophy, including shameless self-indulgence, might reign supreme at a given moment.

"The Headache" by Ross Bachelder

Given this rather Utopian stance against the world, why ought I to feel compelled to apologize for hanging one of MY more curious drawings (see attached image) on the same wall with one from the incredible outpouring of the MASTER?


The message I've been so verbosely leading up to is that allowing oneself to be intimidated by the works of  more accomplished, more famous, more gifted practitioners of the artform you so lovingly embrace is purely and simply an act of the most self-abasing futility -- and act that can only lead to self-doubt, second guessing and an almost cryogenic freezing of the creative juices coursing through your veins.


A better way to deal with people like Picasso -- or Nevelson or Kandinsky -- is to think of them as Living Churches or Elite Schools, then STUDY them. Your time -- and only a modest amount of that -- would be best spent paying your most profound respects for their gifts, through either the most humble prayer (Dear God, how come THEY do this stuff so damn well?) or ardent academic inquiry (I'm gonna read myself silly -- find out what makes these dudes tick, even if I go blind and it KILLS me!).


Only JUST ENOUGH time, though. That's because in order to become and then continue to BE an artist -- to catch that elusive firefly that lit the way for Picasso and Nevelson and others -- you must ultimately serve YOURSELF and answer to your muse and no other. To do anything less than that will keep you away from your own canvas and those inspired dreams of eloquence that keep you coming back to your studio in the dark of the night, sleepy but wired, full of feelings and in immediate need of expressing them.


Intimidation is a self-imposed, diabolically tailored straight jacket. It has neither  the mercy nor the patience to wait for you to believe in yourself. It will hold you in its claustrophobic grip and drain you, Dracula-like, of all of the creative gifts that want and deserve a forum. So have a good look at these luminaries, pay your respects, then close that book and get down to your studio -- even if it's only your kitchen table -- and answer to your muse.


                                                                                                  -- Ross Bachelder
                                                                                                     May 11, 2012