Portrait of the Artist in Quarantine

Normally on Fridays I cheat by giving you a smattering of fun resources to distract you from the fact that I didn’t actually write a blog post.

Today, however, I need to say some things about the Artist In Quarantine.

tl;dr: I have not used my time in quarantine to write King Lear.

You may have had the same experience — here we are, millions of monkeys on typewriters with little else to do, and none of us has written King Lear. I’m going to try to untangle my feelings about this. Your mileage may vary — after all, maybe you were trying to write As You Like It.

The fervor with which I have tackled GALAXY, the burn art project that I started blogging about on Monday, has struck me. Should I not have been using this enforced free time to work on my stalled projects? Ten Little Waltzes, which I was supposed to compose last year? Or Lichtenbergianism for Kids, which now needs illustrations? Or SUN TRUE FIRE, which I’ve never really tackled? Or any of the other projects that remain scribbles in the WASTE BOOKS?

Nada. I just haven’t been able to do it. None of my ideas interest me, and even ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS are just too much work.

I need to mention one aspect of my situation that probably does not obtain to most artists: I am retired, so this “enforced free time” is really no different than my life before the Captivity. I had all this time before and I didn’t use it then. I was in some ways stalled out before; the quarantine has simply exacerbated my inability to avoid working by going out.

So when the idea for GALAXY popped into my head, I seized it and devoted all my creative processes to planning it. As a TASK AVOIDANCE, it’s about perfect — it’s not what I ought to be working on, but in itself is a glorious goal.

Plus, that moment may arrive when I find myself needing to avoid working on GALAXY. What better way to make myself write a small piano waltz?

Still, I cannot avoid concluding that I, along with the rest of the world, seem to be in a malaise that has affected my ability to MAKE THE THING THAT IS NOT. It’s hard to create a piece that means something to you when your access to your SCENIUS/AUDIENCE is so greatly reduced.

There’s an additional layer for me: having proclaimed myself some kind of “creativity guru” through the publication of Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy, am I not failing my readers by not using my own Lichtenbergian Precepts to power through this malaise?

If so, I offer my sincere apologies. At least I’m not a worldwide bestseller; the number of people disappointed in my failure to lead by example cannot be more than a handful. I see the tweets of those worldwide bestsellers and — although I may be projecting my own anxiety — I sense that same kind of failure of self-confidence. How does one keep going in all this?

A further layer for me: decades ago, fellow Lichtenbergian Marc gave me a biography of Charles Ives. It’s very good, but I found myself unwilling to finish it. I put it down about two-thirds of the way through. Why? I knew that when he was 53, he came downstairs from his studio and told his wife that the music was no longer there. He couldn’t do it anymore.

This week, I picked the book up and began forcing myself to finish it. Almost immediately I arrived at that point in his life. (The rest of the book deals with the flourishing of his music and his reputation; he lived to be 79.) Having arrived myself at the halfway point between his realization and his death, I’m much more sanguine about the possibility of my well running dry.

So here we are. Or rather, here I am. Socially distanced, wondering whether my pre-existing lack of creativity (as a composer at any rate) is why I’m not composing now, or whether the quarantine has exacerbated it, or whether, like Ives, I’m done.

I suppose the only solution at the moment is to continue working on an epic art installation for a burn that — like everything else — is likely to be canceled.

That’s inspiring, right?

I usually don’t beg for comments on this blog (although they’re always open) but I’d like to hear how your creative life is going during quarantine. Are you doing more with all the free time? Worse, like me? Or something else? (You can always email me if it’s too painful/personal to share in public.)

UPDATE: From Austin Kleon’s newsletter, a tiny ray of hope: A Tiny Triumph.