quitvision Pieces, Writing

Delicate Chords

Is this good? 

What a hard question to answer. For yourself and for others. And worst of all, by others. 

Is what you made right? 

Well, no. That’s not possible, but is it right enough for you? 

Maybe, but is it right enough for them? 

Well, that’s what strums the delicate chords of your ringing anxiety. Is it good that they get this power over you? 

It… well it really probably is. It feels awful to be scrutinised and backseat driven by someone without their licence. But it is ultimately good to get ugly holes of criticism blasted all through the delicate harmonies and collages you built for someone. And there it is, the reminder. It is for someone, not just for you. 

After hours of sautéing your brain on a hot screen, it sometimes goes blank without warning. You could have sworn that you were frantically stirring at the proteins of an idea, but the black crust of power saving mode burning over the screen says you were scorching completely still in inactivity. It cools and dims into a dark dusty painting of your room, with a face at the helm, a face you see as that of an artist, an auteur. Someone who gives their whole self to their creations. Someone with complex attachments to conflicting aspirations and needs. My work must be totally and entirely mine. My work must be the very best it can be. And really, what you see in that mirror is someone who is hurt by feedback. Pained by the meddling hands reaching into their chest. Someone who has a head bigger than they like to let on, a head that bashes against others, hard and easily. What does this guy know? Maybe nothing. Maybe how to elevate every single thing you ever poured your soul into. It hurts every time, letting them in. Because what if they take it? What if they carve their opinions out of something they don’t understand? It’s scary to feel the depths of you invaded. But maybe they do understand? Maybe if you get it as well as you say, you’ll see the truth behind their demands. Maybe you could give trusting their vision a try. And it’s hard, because you don’t know if you respect them enough for that. They see themselves as fellow artists, but do you? You can’t see their soul.

Is this good? Well, it’s yours and it’s theirs, so you’ll have to share opinions on that. You’re always your own boss with your art. But it’ll make you stronger to get managed a little. To work within the funnel. You might have to let go a little. This never was completely yours, and this attachment comes from fear that you only know how to do this on your own terms. And you can get back to that soon enough. But remember, this is what you wanted. To fall off your comfortable rock, and into the sea. Stress is part of it, but so is relief, and pain and growth. Take the feedback and do your best, but don’t kill yourself over it like you would for your own work, that’s the price they pay for it not being entirely yours. You can only give a limited amount of yourself. And that’s good, and that’s ok. This is the ringer you felt inspired to push through, and if you’re honest it could be a lot worse. You’re still doing your thing, but as a contractor. This would all be easier to swallow washed down with a paycheck, but hey, your first steps can’t ever be your most comfortable.

quitvision Pieces, Writing

A Full Length Mirror Folded Into A Suitcase

Cutting it down between repetitions is amputation. You’re going to lose functionality. It depends where and how we make the incision, but we’re either going to bleed out the gaps and thin the pacing, or sever the cadence and infect the tonal complexities, scabbing over emotional resonances. You will be asking me to change the size of a formed organ, grown under gravity and cell structure to perform for your internal mechanics. You can ask me to carve out more space in your ribcage. You can ask me to clot your loose ends and sew together the joints. But it will be messy, bloody work against the seamless logic of nature. My hands will quiver, while yours lay limp with lost feeling. Maybe you’ll fit someone else’s vision of the world, but you’ll shatter your offering with your redundant shape, like a full length mirror folded into a suitcase.

quitvision Poems, Writing

Taser Sings The Hits

Music in another dimension.
To follow not to be.
This choir sings like shit.
Every voice is me.
The big room echoes upstairs.
I tase myself over and over.
The muffler comes off.
And the rumble comes in.
Make it damper.
Round it off.
The melody pokes you in the eyes.
And to us the eyes matter.
Look at it.
Not in your mind.
Not some approximation.
Let its weight hold you down.
You aren’t alone in here.
quitvision Pieces, Writing

Medium

I like books, and I like poems, and I like songs. These are mediums of art that are written, meaning that someone builds an idea in their imagination, a workshop where they possess god-like powers of universal manipulation and understanding. They fuse together electrical winds and impulse glows in the surging symbol-less language of cognition to sculpt a perfect artefact. Completely pure, powerful and unquantifiable. Impotent. Next the architect must tear it all down so that each molecule can be analysed, packaged and translated into a comprehensive set of instructions. These instructions can then be written in physical or digital space or projected into sound vibrations which may or may not be converted into data in physical or digital space for later reproduction. The words are not the thing, they are simply the directions for reconstructing the thing in your imagination’s own dimension. Well, maybe not that simply, because to me this is really where a lot of the art is, in the accuracy and conveyance of this translation in and out of unspeakable brain language.

When you paint by numbers, the number ‘3’ might be for green. But what green do you have? Is it a dark pine or a bright teal? Is it acrylic or oil? Enamel or spray paint? What art supply store did you visit? How long have you had it? Did you mix it yourself? What brush are you using? How fast does it dry? How runny is it? How workable is it? How many of these have you done before? Do you even like the colour green? How shaky are your hands? How hard are you pressing? How tired are you? How long do you spend on the delicate edges? How secure are you in your painting ability? Do you even care about this picture? Are you following the instructions? Are you even using green here? Are you adding shading without realising? Has the doorbell rang and startled you in the middle of an important stroke? Are there some sections where there isn’t any number? What are you going to do about those? Do you do this in your spare time or as a serious hobby? Are you embarrassed or proud of your work here? Is this the first moment all week you’ve had to yourself? Is this relaxing or stressful? Was this set a gift? Are you only doing this because the person who gifted you this set keeps asking you about it? Are the numbers just guidelines or absolute law to you? Do you enjoy following instructions? Do you wish to one day paint without numbers? Is this green from a memory? Is this the green of the coat you lost, the tree you climbed, the bottle you drank, the note you found? Is it an envious green? Is it a healthy green? Is it a green for GO? Is it a putrid mouldy green? And that’s just green.

Sentiments can rarely remain completely true and unaltered when translated into different languages. They can be completely misunderstood even with only varying colloquialisms. When another person builds your glistening idea in their own head using those instructions, that when compared to the precision of the original build, are impossibly vague, their artefact will not mirror yours. Because it is not yours, it is theirs. And this is the joy of books and poems and songs, they can only ever be descriptions of an idea for you to assemble for yourself at home. The emotional colouring can be as specific as it wants, the setting can be meticulously defined ad nauseum, the plot details can be entirely unwound, explored, and examined. And yet still. I see the world differently to you. I am incapable of constructing your pure masterpiece in my own dimension, because the physics there are completely different to the ones in the incommunicable place that you originally built it. And maybe that is what makes it a masterpiece. Each word delivers me your meaning. And after each word there is a space. A mystery. A void where I can fill in everything that you could never tell me. Everything that makes your ideas real and personal to me, that allows them to ring and resonate through my inner dimension as it did yours, even though they are different shapes. Everything that casts my artefact as perfect and pure as yours, despite unimaginable variation.