Baker Artist Portfolios

la mia lettera a sforza

To draw,
inter alia,
is a way of thinking with marks.
Thinking does not happen only
In the mind and there are thoughts
That cannot exist without feedback
From material reality.  Building is like
Drawing with wood or metal or stone 
Or dirt or what have you; painting
And drawing are like building with
Color and line. (Which sounds  like
Pretense only if it's mistaken for an
Ontological proclamation about how
Things are, rather than heard for
What it is: which is: a handy way of
Thinking. 

A  story: having finally extricated myself
From a certain bad situation I'd  made
For myself I was suddenly free
From all obligation - besides the rent
For the garage where I keep a studio,
To which I returned only to be reminded
That I had just moved all my flotsam
Into it and there was no room to paint
And in a fit I walked off with some chalk
In my pocket and got no further than
Below the Remington Street Bridge
In Wyman park, where I started to make
Little drawings on the rock and concret walls.

But the wall was too irregular
And it was impossible to make
Substantial images with dry chalk.
So I made paint from chalk and glue
And water and then I got chalkdust
In jugs and made great brushstrokes
With kitchen brooms and drew lines
With chalk on a long stick and spent
Two weeks raking and cleaning the area
Underpassing the bridge and painting pictures.

I became a conspicuous presence and
Passersby commented,
Mostly favorably,
And I did some of the 
The best work
I've ever done

Only traces of that work remain,
mostly covered up with graffiti.
Normal life, such as it is, resumed,
And without any kind of support
My efforts were unsustainable, and
I slowly lost touch with the project;
I went back more and more sporadically
At longer intervals until it became
A point of anxiety that upon returning
I would find my work painted over,
Which I expected to happen from
The beginning and which I knew
Would break my heart and eventually
It did and it did.  (I stopped by yesterday -
As young men filled the air wih fumes
Spraying graffiti over top of the graffiti
That had been painted over my murals -
And the one thing that almost remains
Is an image of Kali dancing atop the supine
Shiva - Shiva has been covered up. There
might also be a guitar player, but
I forgot to check for that, and of course
Everytime I discover some last trace
Has been finally vanquished it breaks
My heart all over and so I cultivate a
Certain epistemic mysticism about
The whole thing and evade discovering
the current truth, in all its sadness and
Bathos.)

But:
I remember whole days from dawn to dusk feeling as though every motion affirmed my purpose in life, which is to bring beauty and order into the world.

I have sacrificed my life to that purpose.
I do not have a family and probably never will.
I cannot keep a job because the hardships of
Sporadic income are nothing compared to
The pain and alienation and boredom of
Devoting energy and intelligence to projects
In which I have no creative stake, which offer
No interest or learning,  and to which I am not
Bought by love. I do not believe in jobs.  

It naturally occurs to me as I live my life in constant clash with what most people take for granted that I am delusional in some way.

But I am not. Whatever my faults
I am a man of uncommon abilities,
And despite 
Tenacious resistances of the world,
The saddening lack of recognition -
Which is maybe my rightful punishment
For failing to play the games of professionalism -
which as I see it should be a dirty word,
for an artist, or for a poet, or a philosopher -
I am no longer young
And I have seen what others offer and
I am not ashamed or intimidated. 
And I don't care about bourgeois
Presumptions, nor fear or the smiles
Of well-estabished persons. 

Et se alchuna de le sopra dicte cose a alchuno paressino impossibile et infactibile, me offero paratissimo ad farne experimento in el parco vostro, o in quel loco piacerà a Vostra Excellentia, ad la quale humilmente quanto più posso me recomando.