Tag: #Documenting

  • The Act of Journaling

    I read an article in this week’s New Yorker, entitled “The Paper Tomb,” about the journals of Claude Fredericks. Who, you ask? In fact, the article starts off the same way. Unless you went to Bennington College, or are a deep dive fan of the novel, “The Secret History,” odds are you are like me, and this would be the first time his name has shown up in your life. What makes Claude Fredericks interesting, at least in this article, is that he spent an entire lifetime journaling, and expected it to be published. Also, Fredricks was an early proponent, autofiction, though in his mind, he saw the journal as the vessel of this media, and not the novel.

    I read the article last night, and I have been thinking about it since. I do like the ambition of a longhaul documentation of one’s life, in the sense that it is a fascinating art project. It’s like Andy Warhol’s “Sleep,” five and a half hours of a guy sleeping. Sure, it’s an anti-film, but it also plays on the idea of documentation to the point where it is actually just witnessing life. Can you truly document an entire life? We all know the answer is no. You cannot witness someone else’s entire life, nor can you get every detail of life down on paper.

    But what is it then? I journal, and I know a great number of other people who journal as well. Hell, Gary Shandling was a prolific with his journals. Are we doing this for ourselves, or do we all intend to have someone read them one day? Isn’t this just a fancy literary way of talking to ourselves?

    I have completed 38 journals that are anywhere from 200 to 300 pages long each. I started when I was 18 and continue to this day. They are in a box in the office, and most days I don’t think about them. Then I complete a journal, and go to throw it into that box, and that’s when I ask myself, who is this really for?

  • If Art is Made And No One Sees It, Is It Art?

    Today, I took the kid over to the Museum of Modern Art. This was our second time there, and I let her lead the way. Explore what she wanted, ask whatever questions, and just let her discover what she liked.

    What really set her on fire today was the Henri Matisse Cut-Outs. At first, she just liked the colors and the shapes, but when I read the description of the work provided by the museum, she quickly made the connection that she too cuts out construction paper and makes pictures! She decided that she needed to sketch these cut-outs so she could try it at home.

    It was pretty busy today, so we found a bench in the adjacent gallery so she could draw in her sketchpad. The gallery we were in was displaying films and photographs of artists who were documenting their different cities that they lived in during the late 60’s and early 70’s. This I found interesting and inspiring as it seemed like something I should be doing, and could be doing as well. (Maybe I am doing it?) But I came to a question; Were they documenting for themselves or for an audience?

    You can make all of these things, follow these creative endeavors, but at the end of the day, do you need someone to share it with? Does expression need to have an audience to be expressed to? My uncle, who was an artist, would have said no, that art doesn’t need a witness. He would say art is a process, and not explicitly a product.

    Maybe he was right. Maybe the work is the thing.