43) Career Builder

Art, Walls.

The things one misses and wishes for are unexpected. My walls in Austin were hung with photos and art found and collected over years; decades of décor that tended to stay with me once decided upon and acquired. There were detours: when married, the three homes we shared blended our tastes. Along the way, filler stuff might get hung, things I didn’t love but preferred to a blank wall. But by the time I reached my last house in Austin, nearly every room had been curated to reflect what mattered, what pleased, what I wanted to see, day in and day out.

I miss my walls. In six pieces of luggage, I packed clothing, some books, and family snapshots. I shipped a couple of boxes with boots and coats, but I figured all the other stuff would be too expensive and unnecessary to ship. I’ve been in my sublet home in England for a few days. It’s been cleared out except for furnishings and basics, and I immediately went into a frenzy of trying to make it a home. It’s easy to find accents; a vase or two for the flowers I always need to see, throws and cushions to set a color palette; plants, even a little lighting flourishes. It got a lot cozier with those additions, but the walls are bare.

I miss my big, framed photos; Lynn Goldsmith’s Bowie, Annie Liebowitz’ ’75 era Mick and Keith, Robert Matheu’s SRV and I forget who’s BB King. I miss my huge canvas that Gary Myrick painted and gave me 45 years ago that I’ve been seeing in every apartment and house I’ve lived in since. I miss the gorgeous painting I got from the homeless art show that St David’s Episcopal Church presents every year. The evocative painting I bought online from an unknown artist. I miss my giant framed print of Paris Metro stations. My Warhol Elvis numbered lithograph. My cool mirror collection.

I have friends that know art, collect art, who are patrons of art, who themselves are artists. The little I know about art tends to be what I’ve learned from them. Several have the means to spend whatever it costs to own or collect the art they love, but occasionally choose work that’s inexpensive or from unlikely sources. This was a revelation—sort of an endorsement of the idea that art could be for everyone, and collecting wasn’t just an elite hobby. But it does take time—nearly all of what I own, I stumbled upon and only knew I wanted it when I encountered it. I never went out looking or shopping for art. Part of what makes it special is the discovery; the surprise of being captivated, the thrill of taking it home, leaning it against walls until the right spot is evident. And then, over time, the familiarity and continuity.

I didn’t fully know this until I tried to look for art for these bare walls. It didn’t seem right, it wasn’t fun and turned out to be futile. Some things can’t be rushed. They will be found, will happen when it happens.

Thought: Like friendships. My life is likely to have some bare walls for a while too.

I’ve tried to paint a few times. Never have I been less pleased with a process or the result of a creative impulse. It brought no joy. I was not lost in the moment of creating. I was frustrated with my lack of ideas, of talent, of inspiration. My lack of seeing anything in my mind that I wanted, my inability to make something, anything, out of nothing. Sometimes nothing is better than something.

My ex-husband isn’t like this. He paints with dedication, feeling, commitment, determination. He creates canvas after canvas, all shapes, all materials. He plays and experiments, and enjoys the process and the end product—some of which go on his walls, the rest are stacked in careful arrangements against walls. He doesn’t want to show or sell them. He just wants to paint and feel all those things that creators feel. He also makes music, in much the same fashion. Volumes of sessions and songs, complete recordings, with all the instruments executed well, full-on productions that go far beyond a hobbyist’s home demos. Only a few people hear these songs. Like the paintings, the purpose seems to be intently for the sake of doing it, for himself.

When we were together, I joined him in painting one day. I kept adding swipes and dabs of paint in my frustration of not making anything that satisfied me. It got uglier and uglier. What had started as a painting of a guitar became a mess of incompatible strokes of varying widths and lengths in colors that only seemed to make each other look worse. In my final stab at turning it into art, I cut out the block letters “Career Builder” from an LA Times newspaper ad and glued it onto my painting.

We laughed at “Career Builder” –at least I’d managed to make my ugly art into a statement piece.

I kept that painting though. Not where I see it, but usually in a garage or storage room, leaning face against the wall. The canvas has survived where the marriage failed. Occasionally I wonder if perhaps it actually might be okay and I just won’t suspend the utter lack of joy in making it to see anything to like. There must be some reason I’ve moved it from place to place for 20 years.

Until. The purging of stuff at my Austin house got brutal in the days before coming here. “Career Builder” was taken to be dropped off with a pile of other stuff to Goodwill. My friend Melessa urged me to take a photo before disposing of it. I’ve looked at the photo way more than I ever looked at the painting, and guess what? I don’t hate it.

The thing that would make this an absolutely perfect story would be if someone who reads this lives in Austin and told me they’d wandered into a thrift store and happened to buy this painting. (I would not want it back. I don’t like it that much.)

Career Builder

Turning 65 here in the UK wasn’t a planned thing, but turned out to be perfect. Tomorrow I celebrate with family and friends at one of my favorite London extravagances, the Savoy Grill. I was too jet-lagged on Jan 7th to enjoy much other than the tons of messages and birthday wishes I got from social media. I felt loved and appreciated and I know lots of you were posting, so thank you for making it special.

As always, I’m very grateful to have you opening, reading, commenting, subscribing, sharing, gifting—any support means so much. Besides which, we need to keep me writing stories, songs and substack dispatches or else I might try painting again.

Direction of motion will be back and forth a bit, so the train essays don’t start til mid Feb. Look for the next one around Jan 22—I’ll be back in Austin playing farewell shows with the Bluebonnets and collecting Gingerman and Rocky.