The Artist









Awakening



The summer awakened with a roar of thunder. No more books! No more prostitution of soul! I had decided to change myself for the better and to drag out the past monsters that still crept silently behind my back, waiting to devour me with each passing grain of time.

The plan was, I would pull at the past like tangled threads of yarn. I would keep pulling until my fingers bled with effort. And then I would find myself... Somewhere in the blessing of breathing, I would understand why I am what I am and why others are not.

I am an artist. I have always been an artist. The kind of artist that gnaws at his own insides, questioning the entirety of his being, until there is nothing left but blood and sour apples. And apple sauce is an acquired taste to be sure. Some people hate it, others get addicted to its bittersweet taste easily.

I never felt though, that I was as "genius" as they had thought me to be. So I kept at myself like a guilty priest who must keep himself away from all the sin he secretly desires. The only thing that ever works for those types of men is the bitter lash of the whip.

But in that year of awakening, I made myself promise to at least try to change. I wanted to stop the isolation and show myself to everyone that I was a man who can actually be reached, and maybe even loved. It was the year I began to see the truth: That all dreams have realities within and anything that can not be seen, yet felt, is most likely to be real... In some form or another.

What I began, was a journey through time. My time and no one else's. The kind of time that is measured in memory, not gravity.



The Year of the Hurricane


I remember the year well. It was the year of the hurricane. Houses fell and floods were opened. And the water kept seeping through and infiltrating the skins of the weak, leaving nothing but sickness and poverty.

But the storm brought something unexpected... It made me truly hear the thunder for the first time. And its deafening voice screamed the one and only truth:
"CREATE!"
Scribbles. Scratches. Anger. Velocity. "NO!" "This is NOT art!" I can't stop telling myself. I try to hold the brush, but my hand keeps shaking. "Art is beauty. Art is detailed. Art is something better than THIS!"

O.K. That's enough. I slide down the wall, breathing out of rhythm. Why do I always do this?

This is the way I've always been. The passion inside me, both creative and destructive, has been the one thing I am unable to control within myself. Both a deity and a demon. But maybe I am just hearing the words of my father? The repeated hellish whippings that were struck against the back of my head when I was a child? Memories are such playful monsters...

"Son! You aren't seeing the shadows! Look at what you are creating, it's a mess! If the human body was meant to look like that, God would be out of a job! Your lines are all shaken! You won't be accepted to a proper art school if your lines are not flowing according to correct anatomical proportions! Are you my son or not?!"

Indeed. The all time question as I was growing up in my youth...

He was a professional artist himself, though he never claimed international fame with his own paintings and sculptures. He was too preoccupied with finances and family and forced to run his fathers vineyard when he was twenty years old. But with me, his only son, he saw a chance to make his name - our name, known forever. At least that is how I saw things.

"Maybe I'm a failure and not your son at all. Maybe I was adopted and you never told me!"

Slap. Back of the head. Always pinches, than retreats to numbing softness.

"I AM your father." And the pause continued with a glare more intense than I had seen him use with filthy rich land owners from Venice. "I am your father and you are MY son! And you WILL learn to draw correctly!"

Correct and non correct were words the child didn't understand fully. How can you teach a child what is not natural to learn?

Art = Perfection?
Perfection = Fame?
Fame= Love?
Love = ?

A never ending cycle between my father and I. I was only seven years old and he had already envisioned my hands with greatness. Not that I didn't want to be great. But, as a child, I simply wanted freedom, as all children desire... Until they realize how much being free frightens some people, especially selfish parents with their own absolutely determined pre-destined plans.

But my father was not the only cause for what I like to call my "Paradox Artist Disorder". (My desire to create more than anything, mixed with my need to kill anything that I've created.) When I was merely five years old, my mother died of a Uterine Infection - hence why my father could be so cold to me at times, and also why I believe I have such a fear of the dark.

I saw her beautiful, porcelain, doll-like frame slowly disappear in the night while she was sleeping. It is an image that I never have been able to forget.

Sleep had never been my friend.

I suppose I viewed the night as a murderer. But on the other hand, I had helplessly watched years later as my father was unable to fight against horrible battles with insomnia. Neither was good. Both could kill. And extremes can be deadly, yes. But for an artist, extremes are always an easy addiction.

Every day has been a challenge. I come and go throughout time just waiting for the chance to prove myself... to not only my father's spirit, but to myself as well. And my own spirit is an even more dangerous abuser. My father's worst abuse never matches the fury I put upon myself in the deepest part of my soul. And it's never more self hating than in the early morning hours of creation.

I pick up the tool for what should be an artistic activity. But as usual, it turns more ugly as the movement in my fingers tries to keep up with the pace of my hatred. But what do I really hate? My own self? My art? My father? My pain? Where does that madness begin? Where is the nucleus of my insanity? And is there a cure for it?
Love? Sex? Death? Rebirth?
God, I'm lost again.



Monkey See, Monkey Run


When I was fifteen, my father told me I was making progress. He sent me to the finest school, where he himself attended. Amidst the lush gardens of Italian grandeur, I would stare lazily at the beauty God laid down on "his" Earth. I would tell myself that I would out do everything and everyone. All who had came before, including my father, would be sickened by my abilities. It was all I could do to feel like a rebellious child who had individuality somewhere deep in the well of my father's best achievement.

I did not want to be HIS son. I did not want to be famous for HIM. I wanted to prove to myself alone that I could be more than what he had planned. At first I kept a low profile, which was difficult, being that my name was a famous one. My father had promoted the hell out of me when I was a child, trying his damnedest to make me into a child star.

"Come see little Apollo Antonius Vidali perform in front of a dazzling set of his own paintings! Don't miss your chance to witness this Boy Genius!"

He'd force me every year to enter art and music competitions around the globe. But by the time I was 12, the cuteness factor wore off and people didn't quite buy into the "boy genius" routine any longer. My father was challenged and instead of blaming circumstance, or maybe even himself, he chose to blame my ability.

So he damned me to school until further notice. And even though my name was known by most, I felt as if I was suddenly a nobody. Someone who tried and failed before even reaching adolescence.

I walked up and down quietly through the long halls of the prison/art school, waiting to be awakened to something more within. My father wrote me letters and I answered with obedience and appreciation. But by the winter, I felt the need to run.

I began wondering what it would be like to do everything backwards. I knew Hell existed, but that didn't frighten me in the slightest. I had already gone there in my childhood and the idea was quite alright with me, as long as I could live there as who I really was, and no longer the version of my father's liking.

Maybe it was the abuse talking. Maybe it was the wine. And maybe I had just had enough. But the night before Christmas, I finally burst apart. I was supposed to attend mass the next morning with all the other students, (All of whom I had nothing much in common with since they all seemed to adore the idea of learning how to re-do what has already been done before) and I wanted nothing more than to be transported to another universe. A world where form is unbound by lines and perfect circles... shadows aligned in parallel dreams.

I was watching the trees blowing in the midnight air. I was dreading seeing my father and his new lover. I couldn't imagine having to play the game once again.

"How are you son? Looking forward to next year's competitions?"
"Yes father."
"Did you remember to practice on the piano this week? Always remember that you can fall back on that if you need. And of course, to be a renaissance man is what I've always believed is the best way to achieve God's image."

He laughed in a way I can't fully explain. Somewhat diabolical, yet done in taste, just before becoming dramatic. He relied completely upon the idea that his charm could open the doors to success. He was no different about women. I've often thought that my father was more like a pirate in gentlemen's clothing. He may have appeared like a dignified artist with a vineyard in his good name, but to me, he certainly seemed better described as a repressed pagan from a Dionysian era long gone and washed away by the watery grape juice of Christian morals.

But Christmas was not meant to be. I packed my bags in a sudden rush of adrenaline. It was not going to be like this. It was not going to become another masquerade of flattery and lying eyes. All those smiles that really mean nothing. His laughter would only make me feel more like a madman fighting to remember what is real, and what is really me.

So look at the window boy
Do it now or don't do it at all
You've been the monkey
And you've been the prey
Just look at your face in pain

What more can happen to you?
You'd be poor, but you'd be sane
You've got to find yourself before it's too late!

So look again at the window
The snow is beckoning to know
How would your paintings appear
How would your music hear
If you'd only just go?

So just go!


©2005 Aryl Shanti

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