Leaving Paris

My answer to the question “What do you teach?” shifted over my four decades in college classrooms. Back in the 70s it was “radio-tv-film.” The 80s brought “mass communication.” And then in my last couple of decades it became “communication media and technology.” You know, everything digital, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook and all their progeny.

I’m not sure what moniker the discipline shelters under these days, but, as in days gone by, it will rub up against its kissing cousin - journalism. And while journalism has undergone some painful metamorphosis of its own in the digital age one of its underlying principles remains unchanged: If it bleeds, it leads. (IIBIL).

I currently have at least four major “news” sites on my iPad: The New York Times, something called 1440, which bills itself as an “unbiased news source”, The Guardian, a British site, and New Scientist, for all things science. With the exception of New Scientist, they all cling to the IIBIL mantra, which, in our digital age allows them to dredge up mankind’s inhumanity to humanity from anywhere on the globe. 

Sliding smoothly into second place is reportage dealing with political attacks threatening either violence at the polls, leaving democracy as we know it lying in the battered halls of Congress, or implying further worldwide boycotts, embargoes, ecological disasters or bloodletting. 1440 does have a section called “Humankindness” but you have to scroll down past all the IIBIL mayhem to get to it. Still better than nothing, I guess.

I started writing this on Mother’s Day, and as mine used to say, “The world is too much with us.” Amen, to that. I have grown weary with the existential coarsening of this globe we all must share. Which brings me to Cezanne.

Paul Cezanne was a French artist who worked from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. He started hanging out, and hanging his art up, with the Impressionists, Monet, Renoir and that crowd in Paris. But he never did get in with the in-crowd. The big city critics were particularly vicious and derisive. Which caused Cezanne to take himself off to the less judgmental bucolic countryside of his youth in Aix-en-Provence saying:  “The world doesn’t understand me, and I don’t understand it, which is why I have retreated from it.” And it was there, far from the madding crowd, that he did his best work.

So, I say to myself, “Self, can you follow Cezanne’s example, and retreat from the world?”  “Hmmm,” I replied. “Let me think about that.”

OK. The following suggests itself:

Cezanne left Paris to escape the negative environment created by the critics and various naysayers. The negative environment I find most worrisome is the one created by the IIBIL bias in the major news sources clamoring for space on my screen. So it seems best for my psyche to shun their digital version of Paris.  Banish The New York Times, The Guardian, 1440, etc. from my morning screen, keeping only The Art Newspaper, The New Scientist and The National Geographic. That won’t totally eliminate IIBIL, which is almost impossible to avoid, but it will greatly reduce the vitriol and gore.

No, I hear you. Doesn’t that make me a cultural slacker? Voluntarily uninformed? At fault for the ills of the world by not seeking to understand and correct them? Well, yes and no. Should Cezanne have stayed in Paris? Trying to convince those who had repeatedly refused him entry to the best shows and galleries? Or was it wiser to escape to the countryside and do the work that later inspired Picasso, Braque, Mondrian and others? If I have to choose, I’m coming down for country.

Leaving the IIBILs folk behind might well elevate my own moods and emotions, leaving me free to better pursue my L’Image Aumentare work which feels like my most mature and satisfying work to date. However, that does lead to a bit of a conundrum - the idea of sharing your best work.

My most convenient avenue for sharing my work is the one before you on the screen - The Wall.  A couple of problems there. First, unless you are a confirmed techie with a huge hi-rez monitor, you see a terribly compromised version of my art. I took a few images into my doctor at my last physical. He is a bit unique. Named among the ten best doctors in the greater Chicago area for the last several years, he also writes and publishes children’s books and messes around with stained glass. He was nonplussed with the difference between L’Image Aumentare in real life and the images on the screen. Real is far better than digital.

So that brings me to the second “sharing” issue. As Cezanne discovered, the best way to fully share your work is to have it on display either in a public show or through a gallery. I did have a show a couple decades ago back in Raleigh. Good feedback, but nothing was for sale. I have sold some pieces privately, but that was uncomfortable - and this points clearly to my second issue. Let’s say I find a gallery up here in Chicagoland willing to represent L’Image Aumentare. Cool. But if you show in a gallery you are supposed to sell your work. And give a more than generous slice of the price to the gallery. That is what a gallery is for, to make money. But, there is - in my mind - a more pressing concern: if you sell your work, you have to give the piece to the buyer. I don’t want to do that. I want to keep them all. A lot of hours, tired hands and eye strain go into each piece. Like I said, I want to keep them. Obviously a paradox with which I will have to deal.

The other major issue I need to consider as I pack my existential bags in preparation to depart Paris is leaving the cafe society, the street scene. Cezanne never became part of cafe society in Paris. I equate that with my profound ennui regarding the IIBIL mentality of contemporary media. Hence, leaving Paris and heading down the digital road to country. However, I do enjoy discussing the issues related to Distilled Harmony [Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity, and Oppose Harm.] that I often explore here on The Wall.

But fortunately, it is The Wall that is my cafe society. Let me side track for a brief history of The Wall. You need a break right? OK, The Wall began back in 1990 when I finished my book, Taming The Wild Tube with the University of North Carolina Press.  When the writing stopped the thinking went on. I would print out the little thought pieces and tape them on the wall behind my computer - hence - drum roll - The Wall, or sometimes Schrag Wall.

Then in April of 1993 the internet went pubic, and I took the paper version of The Wall onto the internet by posting those little thought pieces on a blog - the one you are reading now. [To clarify, you get The Wall as a blind copy so no one on The Wall knows who else is on the Wall unless you share that information with each other.] The Wall obviously started going out to folks I saw as possibly interested, and with whom I emailed; so friends, family, former students, etc. The list has ballooned to maybe 85 names - some of whom have shuffled off this mortal coil and I need to remove them. Others have turned their attention elsewhere and either block or quickly delete The Wall.  However, the blogger app tells me, some 30 or 40 of you do open the posts, and I assume that some subset of y’all actually work your way with me as I natter on about this or that. I know some of you do since you respond - and that is the only way I know who you are, since the app only tells me how many folks open the post, not who you are.

But that is fine. You see, embedded in the list of 80, and - I choose to believe - represented in those 30 or 40 who open the posts, is everyone that I really care about. There is no need to table hop, trying to touch base with the people who are important in my life because you are all here. Oh, you may drift off a bit if the main course is too salty or spicy or bland for your taste. You may sneak out before dessert. No problem. You’ll still get gladly served the next time The Wall pops out of the oven!

And I’m taking you all with me as I put Paris in the rearview window.