The Art of Creation

I wanted to post something before I left Korea, but instead what I have done is to write this post for the future. I happened to go through an old blog of mine that I still post to on ocassion.

The words are mine, the images are the works of artist, Philip Brooker, who has been an artist who has poured his life into his work. He was born an artist. He will always be one.

At this reading, I will be in Paris, the day after Christmas, the journey will have been long. I will be going through the usual arrival processes and getting myself settled in with moist eyes because it took me so long to come back to a place I love.

I wrote about the valley of darkness we all go through. It was strange reading this post, because it almost seemed prophetic. It has been a very difficult year in the West. There has been much suffering, but do your best to touch as many lives as you can.
(C) Philip Brooker
In a World of Art...

It is out of the forces of great pressure from this earth great jewels are formed. It is through great oppression that heroes have arisen. It is through much struggle that voices have risen to create some of the most incredible views of canvas, of scultpture, of words, and of music.

Through the valleys of want some of the most incredible renderings have been produced to reveal more to humanity. Most aspire to greatness, yet fail to walk along a path, choosing comfort and safety of the commercial.

Is real art, the most private kind of work? Where there is no interpretation...no message, but the state of being? This is a time where through much adversity there will be the most incredible works to come. Remember, Paris had vacated the artists, and because of the war, many came to try to rebuild their success over here. Some succeeded, some starved, and some were forced to try to survive in concentration camps and their voices were never heard from again.

The mediums of light and dark, the sweet and the sour, and our current state of alarm are the seeds that can be turned into the muse we seek. For it is out of conflict we grow and it is revealed what really matters. In our state of humility we begin to see the larger truths...those universal ones that we have ignored...those whispers of our heart.

It is one thing to be paid for doing what you love to do. It is another to sacrifice to do what you love...and another to have the courage to live the life you want to have. The displaced community of creative genius who mime their way through other outposts, playing roles of other vocations who scream inside to fuse their words, images, and displays as long discarded dreams...

Of course, there are still dreamers. Waking up in the world of illusionary security being told what is of value in a society that struggles to find its way. What a time to be alive...for a new awakening is beginning. Where there are worlds of currency but no real wealth, except what we bestow upon each other with random acts of kindness without seeking reward.

Yes, this is the greatest resource available...more than credit lines that people have snorted like lines of economic cocaine. There is us...the creators of our own destinies.
12/17/2008

Let Me Show You Paris

Along the Champs Elysees, where the wealthy come just to shop at Louis Vuitton, you will see a world pass by any cafe in clouds of cigarette smoke mixed with Chanel number 5. My eyes saw the world that is ignored, a woman who prays for the pennies to come in to survive on the streets of Paris. I feel the March rains and think for a moment of my own heartache of waiting for an artist, a friend, and the pain subsides with the stark hunger in the streets. The beautiful lights lose their luster as the well heeled passer-bys mock the woman I find my heart breaking all over again. These were my beginnings in Paris, where I came solely to pursue my passions of writing and love...only to see I could not be blind.

As I found the beacon of the Eiffel calling me, I replicated the picture on my vision board. I found the park at the foot of the Eiffel and was dazzled by the reflection in the water. At night, alone, an Algerian man try to seduce me with butterfly kisses that lacked the passion that could only be answered by a familiar mouth. An imposter's heated heady stare was extinguished by my icey blue eyes. I was not for the plundering of such feeble seductions. A hunter that seemed to approach with sophomoric fumblings. Not even the power of the Eiffel could spare this man's humilation as I rolled into laughter...a woman with a closed heart..and a deadly kiss of a black widow. I winked and watched the lovers and visitors pay homage to the iron maiden. The modern goddess of love.

It was in this secluded square where I fell in love with the brilliant finger of this classical guitarist...and I swooned. There was no audience to speak of, and I stood there, out of his view to listen to him play as he would close his eyes and be enraptured by his own melodies. I wanted to dance and feel the music in my blood. I thought to myself of how so much comes through Paris. Who was I to knock on her gates and proclaim my dreams? I came to write about my search and quests along the way. In a city, a life, foreign to me, who challenges the world...a city of cities, of revolutions, of art, of intellectualism...I hungered to taste Paris.

Across from Notre Dame is Shakespeare and company. The library, the bookstore, the flop house for wayward cash strapped travellers...so close to the center of Paris. I fell in love again...with the smell of books, stacks upon stacks that I would wrap my arms around. My eyes fell upon a piano that begged for Chopin, and up the stairs I went to a writer's area, cramped, with an impossible typewriter with torn and worn ribbon, a writer's lamp...and an invitation to leave my mark...a dare to proclaim my dreams...

So I did. I return to Paris, I promised her I would return, as lovers do...and I will go and see the real streets and feel the real earth, and look at her with a full heart...to walk the streets of artists, of writers, and I realize as long as I breathe...I will write with every bit of passion within me.

For my dream has been realized, and now it is time to build bigger ones. J'adore Paris. I will see you again in 10 days darling.