To Cull Is Divine

I recently decided to try and clean out the closet in my office, part of a larger project to thin out the clutter that naturally collects in any modern home. It’s a daunting endeavor—not just because of the physical toll it requires, which is considerable for a body like mine, with its underdeveloped front, but for the psychological strain of parting with art I’ve created.

I decided to document some of my findings here because this is, after all, my diary. And while it’s no longer secret, I do still think there’s some therapeutic value in using it for its original purpose. Though it is worth noting, that I feel somewhat reluctant, mostly because it leaves me open to judgement, and generally speaking my attitude these days towards people sharing their opinion on my lifestyle choices is “Your insights are very helpful, please look away while I eat this entire stromboli.”

My enthusiasm for the endeavor quickly wobbled as I began the process. After all, I had gone through a similar thinning about six or seven years ago. All the chaff has already been discarded. I keep opening boxes and seeing old work and saying “I can’t throw this out! Look how straight those lines are!” or “I can’t throw out these lunchboxes! I need a copy for myself, and a copy in case I lose the copy for myself!” I’m faced with the reality that I have lived a long time, and most of what I’ve acquired has value in some capacity. Nevertheless, some of it must go.

I need to be cold and heartless. Detach myself from the memories that come flooding back with every item I touch. My father’s old camera, which he bought while stationed in Japan. It doesn’t work. I don’t take pictures. But nevertheless, here it lives, propping up a box of manila folders that keeps falling down because there’s no longer enough folders inside to keep it upright on its own. Mock-ups for book covers, old book proofs, original watercolors, inked final art. Project after project — some failed, some successful. The failures, I feel like I can redeem. Fix broken drawings, learn some lessons. That can be an extremely helpful exercise, redrawing something from twenty years ago. I can do it so much better now! And… the successes, I should keep, right? To remind me that I can do this job, that if I work hard, make good choices, I can call myself a professional illustrator. I can prove it!

But that is, of course a trap. I shouldn’t need any of this stuff. I should know who, and what I am, without these outside crutches. Perhaps they’re actually doing more damage than I think. How successful can one feel when there’s a hundred failed drawings living in the closet, a chilling reminder that dog legs are super tricky to draw? Or that book that never got past the prototype stage because it was too heavy for editors to lift, much less read. Getting rid of things, even the good things, allows me to grow. Trees shed their leaves, year after year, to conserve resources, and survive until the spring, so that they might grow again. Am I not also of this earth? Can I not also live by that pattern of life? What hubris, to think I am outside the cycle of life and death, that I can resist the natural culling of things.

That is the way of the world.

This is what must be done.

Forward I go.

Instead I draw for an hour or so. Add to the pile. This is beyond creative outlet, beyond self-soothing behavior. This is a compulsion. I should see a psychiatrist! But what’s the end result there? Less drawing? I don’ t want to do less drawing! What I need is some way for the act of drawing itself to help clear this stuff away. Like… I draw so fast, that the paper catches fire, and all this stuff is destroyed in the blaze, making any sort of sorting I do now completely moot.

Nuts. Not even a spark.

Well, at least I can get rid of this drawing.

Although…

Nuts.