Artist in Overdrive

Posted on July 19, 2010 by margie

It’s only recently that people have stopped asking me what I do each day.  The idea that I did not have a job, in the classic sense, lead them to believe that I must be spending each day wandering about in a state of idle purgatory, somewhere in-between lounging on the beach and constantly running from one job interview to another.  People are starting to get it now, starting to understand that not only do I fill each day quite richly and productively (some more than others) but that I am, in fact, so busy that I frequently don’t even have weekends to use for said lounging.

Substantially harder to explain is why I choose to do what I do.  Life would certainly be easier if I had a paycheck handed to me every once in a while (which is one of my aims).  And it would be substantially easier if I simply chose to do less.  I don’t have to volunteer to design yet another short film that only the festival geeks will ever see.  I don’t have to set a deadline for my next screenplay since I’m worlds away from having an agent breathing down my neck for it.  So why do I?

All people are driven to step beyond their obligations to simply exist and procreate by different reasons.  It can be to stave off boredom, to release a subconscious desire, to answer the call of the muse, or the desperate need to be able to look back on their lives and say “yeah, I did that.”  For me it is both all of those reasons and none of them the same time.  It’s a voice that tells me that I will accomplish something great.  It’s the visions of me attending my own premiere, being interviewed by an iconic figure and yes, being handed awards.  Above all that, it’s the idea that I will watch a compelling story that I helped to create, play out before my eyes and still get from it that same sense of amazement and wonder one only seems to touch in the early years of childhood.  It is want.  It is desire.  It is drive.  It is need.

I can only relate this intangible concept to one tangible object: Michelangelo’s Rondanini Pietà.  Never heard of it?  I’m not surprised.  It was the last piece Michelangelo was working on up until a few days before his death, and it was never finished.  What remains of this marble block is only the sinewy ghosts of Mary and Jesus, and one nearly finished arm, polished to a shine but completely dismembered from any body.  This hacked apart marble block could never have become a completed work worthy of the master’s reputation.  Nonetheless, seeing it nearly brought me to tears.  Michelangelo worked on this sculpture up until a few days before his death at the unheard of age of 89.  Driven by whatever his need was, to touch the divine, to step beyond the mortal plane and out of his pain-ridden mortal body, or to perhaps leave a piece of his soul here on earth, he just had to keep working.  In that dismembered arm, the shadowy faces in the stone, the jittery marks of an unstable chisel, I could feel that need, that driving force to create that was so strong it became destruction.

So I keep chiseling.  I answer my muse.  I let my subconscious take the driver’s seat.  I am far from bored, and someday I will look back and say “Wow, I did that!”  I just hope I know when to stop chiseling.  Even if I don’t, someone may look at what I created and see beautiful destruction.  I leave you with the words of the master himself.

Only with fire can the smith shape iron
from his conception into fine, dear work;
neither, without fire, can any artist
refine and bring gold to its highest state,
nor can the unique phoenix be revived
unless first burned. And so, if I die burning,
I hope to rise again brighter among those
whom death augments and time no longer hurts.
I’m fortunate that the fire of which I speak
still finds a place within me, to renew me,
since already I’m almost numbered among the dead;
or, since by its nature it ascends to heaven,
to its own element, if I should be transformed
into fire, how could it not bear me up with it?
- Michelangelo Buonarroti 1532

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A New Direction

Posted on July 13, 2010 by margie

I actually never wanted to write a blog.  As soon as it became something that everyone’s friends, cousins, grannies and doggies could do, they did.  We all have interesting experiences, fun stories worth telling at the water cooler.  We all have opinions that we’ve learned to back-up with a thesis statement and three supporting paragraphs.  But lets face it, very few of us actually experience something exciting everyday and nobody really cares what you think about the rising price of milk.  I was encouraged to start my blog to both better my writing and share my experiences with anyone who cared to listen.  Despite my doubts, writing Marglish.com has been a very rewarding experience.

But lately I’ve been finding myself short of material for my loyal readers.  Why?  Because having committed myself to life in Sydney it has become just that, life.  It’s not always average but it’s also not always interesting either.  Aussie culture isn’t the mystery it once was and though I have a lot of the country left to travel, thinning bank accounts prevent it from happening with any regularity.  So my inspiration to write about the oddities of life as an ex-pat is waning.  But my desire to create beautifully written pieces of bite-sized autobiographical literature lives on.

So what am I going to write about now?  What is interesting enough about my life that it will make my blog better than your dogs?  Well, moving to another country wasn’t the only thing that changed about my life in the last year.  I also officially became a freelancer, a.k.a. starving artist, a.k.a. indy filmmaker, a.k.a. broke-ass writer.  These were all things I had done in the past but always in balance with the 9-5 daily grind.   But now I live my daily life in the constant pursuit of seemingly lofty artistic aspirations, with no promise of an income in my immediate future.  And I love it!

My experiences may not always be blogworthy, but life as a freelancer has taken me to some odd places and introduced me to some even odder people.  It’s also forced me to face the most frightening challenge of all, self discipline.  Cultural observations and travel reports will still be choice topics on Marglish.com but I’m expanding my palate to include the colors of life as a hopeful artist.  I hope to paint you all an entertaining picture.

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Coming Back

Posted on July 6, 2010 by margie

This post about my trip back to the States is long overdue, very much because of the aftermath of the trip itself.  Having traveled to five different cities in two different hemispheres in the course of just over two weeks takes its toll, even when your trip is for pleasure.  My inner journo has been stifled by exhaustion, illness, seasonal confusion, followed by the desperate rush to finish everything I was unable to accomplish while I was in my post-travel daze.  But I write this now with an open schedule and a clear head, newly readjusted to the gravitational pull of the Southern Hemisphere.

A few observations from the flip side:

American money IS really boring.  I had heard that before but could never really relate.  It also feels substantially less robust than Aussie money.  Perhaps currency reflects culture in more ways than intended.  But you certainly spend a lot less of it.  My idea of a reasonable price is so far from what it used to be.  Shopping at certain outlets and chain stores felt almost like getting away with theft.  I guess there is something to be said for a mass consumerist culture.  Although, taxes and tipping sucks a bit.  Go easy on the foreigners who might shortchange you.  They probably just come from a culture with a more straightforward billing system.

Driving on the other side of the road only seemed a little strange when I was on a new road.  It created a particularly strange sensation while on a road lined with eucalyptus trees though.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Changing seasons on the way there was not particularly hard, but coming back to winter is quite a depressing experience.  If the cold doesn’t get to you, then the lack of light does.  We came back to Sydney on the shortest day of the year after having been in a city where it was still light at 8pm.  Luckily the days can only get longer from here.

My Many Homes:

Going back to LA felt the same way it always has.  I guess I’m used to coming home again, even if the trips happen less frequently than they used to.  But this was the first time I have ever gone back to New York and not been returning to my own humble abode.  I can only describe the sensation of going back like that of reading a book or seeing a movie that you loved as a child but haven’t been exposed to for many years.  You remember the major plot points, the characters and how it ends (usually with a slice of pizza at 2am on a Sunday) but you’ve forgotten little details here and there.  I’d see certain street corners, overhear conversations on the subway, get trapped in the stampede of a deli lunch rush and find myself thinking, oh yeah, I remember that.

It was also louder, more congested and just generally more insane than I remember.  I guess after living there for enough time you develop the ability to shut out everything but what you need and want to hear, see and even smell, then lose it after spending some time away.  But I muscled through overstimulation with the iron will (and stomach) of a true New Yorker.  Yeah, I’ve still got it.

The bagels are amazing, the cocktails are generous, the pizza is rich and delicious and the coffee sucks.  But it tastes like no other coffee in the world.  That slight hint of burnt metal and taste of grounds that have spent weeks at the bottom of the machine is a flavor I fondly associate with the Big Apple, ode de health violations.  I also thought I walked plenty in Sydney, but I realize now that no creature on earth walks as much as a New Yorker.  It took wearing holes in one pair of shoes and my only pair of feet before I got my city legs back.  Aussies will be able to swim around the planet when the polar ice caps melt but until then they’ll never beat a New Yorker in an endurance walk.

But perhaps the most surprising thing about going back home was the fact that it made me really feel how much time has passed since I’ve been back.  When you move to a new country, how you feel and what you experience tends to change every few weeks.  Excitement becomes culture shock, because excitement again.  New experiences become everyday life.  Odd becomes normal and eventually your new environment becomes your new home and before you know it an entire year has passed.  But for the people you left behind, the people whose lives now have one less person in them, they seem to have felt every day pass.  You can tell by how tightly they hug you when they finally see you again.  You can see it in the tears they can’t hold back when you have to say goodbye for another year.  It suddenly becomes much harder to leave than you thought it would be.

But because of all those people, both East coast and West, I now have more than one place to call home.  As hard as it is to be separated by time zones and hemispheres, I know I can not only always come back but that I will also always be welcomed.  I’ve felt so much at home in two vastly different cities now, that  when people here ask me where I’m from I have trouble deciding what to say.  And I wouldn’t feel that way without the people I have so much trouble prying myself away from.  So I consider myself lucky, exceptionally lucky.  And if I continue to be as lucky as I am now, maybe I’ll have a third city to call my home.

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