To set down the past before it is all forgotten.
To excavate past because it has been forgotten.
To satisfy my desire for revenge.
Because I knew I had to keep ()ing or else I would die.
Because to () is to take risks, and it is only by taking risks that we know we are alive.
To produce order out of chaos.
To delight and instruct.
To please myself.
To express myself.
To express myself beautifully.
To create a perfect work of art.
To reward the virtuous and punish the guilty; or vice versa.
To hold a mirror up to Nature.
To hold a mirror up to the reader.
To paint a portrait of society and its ills.
To express the unexpressed life of the masses,
To name the hitherto unnamed.
To defend the human spirit., and human integrity and honor.
To thumb my nose at Death.
To make money so my children could have shoes.
To make money so I could sneer at thos who formerly sneered at me.
To show the bastards.
Because to create is human.
Because to create is Godlike.
Because I hated the idea of having a job.
To say a new word.
To make a new thing.
To create a national consciouness, or a national conscience.
To justify my failures in school.
To justify my own view of myself and my life.
Because I couldn't be a ()er unless I actually did some ()ing.
To make myself appear more interesting than I actually was.
To attract the love of a beautiful woman.
To attract the love of any woman at all.
To attract the love of a beautiful man.
To rectify the imperfections of my miserable childhood.
To thwart my parents.
To spin a fascinating tale.
To amuse and please the reader.
To amuse and please myself.
To pass the time, even thoufh it would have passed anyway.
Graphomania.
Compulsive logorrhea.
Because I was driven to it by some force out side my control.
Because I was possessed.
Because an angel dictated to me.
Because I fell into the embrace of the Muse.
Because I got pregnant by the Muse and needed to give birth to it.
Because I had this in my life instead of children.
To serve Art.
To serve the Collective Unconscious.
To serve History.
To justify the ways of God toward man.
To act out antisocial behavior for which I would have been punished in real life.
To master a craft so I could generate texts.
To subvert the establishment.
To demonstrate that whatever is, is right.
To experiment with new forms of perception.
To create a recreational boudoir so the reader could go into it and have fun.
Because the story took hold of me and wouldn't let me go.
To search for understanding of the reader and myself.
To cope with my depression.
For my children.
To make a name that would survive death.
To defend a minority group or oppressed class.
To speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
To expose appalling wrongs of atrocities.
To record the times through which I have lived.
To bear witness to horrifying events that I have survived.
To speak for the dead.
To celebrate life in all its complexity.
To praise the universe.
To allow for the possibility of hope and redemption.
To give back something of what has been given to me.
Can you guess what am I talking about?
YES, you are ABSOLUTELY right.
What does it feel like?
Walking into a labyrinth, without knowing what monster might be inside.
Groping through a tunnel.
Being in a cave, I could see daylight through the opening, but myself was in darkness.
Being under water, in a lake or ocean.
Being in a completely dark room, feeling my way: I have to rearrange the furniture in the dark, and then when it was all arranged, the light would come on.
Wading through a deep river, at dawn or twilight.
Being in an empty room which was nevertheless filled with unspoken words, with a sort of whispering.
Grappling with an unseen being or entity.
Sitting in an empty theatre before any play or films had started, waiting for the characters to appear.
Obstruction, obscurity, emptiness, disorientation, twilight, blackout, often bombined with a struggle or path or journey.
That's what it is.
BONUS
Works of Marianna Gartner
see cover illustration above.
Photos like these from my childhood are the basis for many of Gartner's canvases. What seems to interest her is the absolute presence of these subjects and the persistent, haunting quality that comes from it. Usually their eyes, but many times their postures as well, betray a range of emotions - fear, contempt, hatred, amusement, anger - aimed at something that is no longer there (the seductive lens) and which is now directed at us, their future viewers. Boys (or are they girls?) in old-fashioned clothing, standing empty-handed or holding bouquets of flowers for a funeral or a wedding; doll-like babies in stunned poses, their pouting lips frozen in time; commemoratory men or women taken out of all context, are recreated on her canvases in something like suspended animation. They hold their breath, as if waiting for the long-vanished camera (now replaced by Gartner's brushes) to breathe life into them.
unknown author.
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