FINDING IS LOSING SOMETHING ELSE

That's a quote from Richard Brautigan, who was this writer. My mom loved that particular quote. The whole line, which she said often, was "Finding is losing something else. I think about, perhaps even mourn, what I lost to gain this." I don't know if that is the actual quote. That's just how Mom said it. She also would often say "From the Mud Grows the Lotus." I think that might be the title of my autobiography. Of course, that implies that I have achieved lotushood, which is not really up to me to say. I, like Popeye, am what I am.

For those keeping score, you have no doubt noticed that I am writing on this blog a lot more. There are several reasons for this. First, I feel better when I write- in my journal, with my scripts, on this blog. It purifies my soul somehow. I often think of all these thoughts in my head as living beings, that if I don't get out of my head and onto the page/screen will die inside of me and poison my system. So I do it to stay alive.

Also, there is no shortage of other voices out there saying all sorts of things- and I think that is good. I prefer a species that speaks its mind to a society of statues.

Today, I was going over different images I want projected onto the back of the set for the upcoming production of Honk! at Reel Kids. I was googling this and that, looking at semi-cute drawings and such, when I thought of this painting of a field at the Met in New York. It's one of my all time favorites. It's a sunset, and there are workers in a hay field, and this one is standing and looking at the sunset, with her back to us. She is just so caught up in the sunset or whatever is on her mind, and she is part of the sunset and the field and it's beautiful. Whenever I'm at the Met, I go to see her, along with Joan of Arc and this one Socrates that is my buddy Jack's favorite.



So anyway, I decided that all the projections will be Impressionist paintings of farms and fields and
water lilies. And for the Cat's place, I'm using one of Vincent Van Gogh's bleak paintings of a sad little room. It feels right. I think I am an instinctual creator first and foremost. I leap in, then find form and clean up after. It's how I roll. How I shake and rattle too, for that matter.

I find things, I lose things, and hopefully grow from the mud.