No Maggot Lonely: Thoughts from a Life in Art
An edited version of this essay was published in the June issue of FotoNostrum.
In hindsight, art became my vocation because I had no choice. There are always choices so, like most high-sounding statements, that first sentence isn’t even true. But it feels this way — like if I hadn’t become an artist I would have been eaten from the inside by some sickness.
That’s not to say I didn’t do other things. Not having chosen my parents wisely, I needed to work for a living — survival being the artist’s first imperative — so I had a day gig for years, working as a psychotherapist. A tough job though not boring. Unless you count workshops and part-time courses, I didn’t go to art school but I’m grateful for the proverbial eclectic education I received; it cultivated my tastes and curiosities, which I like to think go wide as well as deep. That was good for my art practice. It also helped me stay amused, no small thing.
Being irrationally relentless — artist imperative #2 — combined with living enough years means I’ve had a pretty long career. It’s been difficult, but a privilege as well: I’ve been lucky to spend all this time carousing in the corridors of my imagination, losing myself in a life of art.
Of course, that begs the question of why I wanted to get lost this way in the first place. Here’s…
