Personal Notes: Pulling Threads

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The illustration above evokes a project I'm working on right now.  It is an illustration of an exercise to limber up the fingers for a pianist, but it speaks to what I'm working on in interesting ways.  Much in the same way a pianist must exercise in order to better their craft, I must "limber up" if I am to improve in my art as well.  My hands are an instrument of my art, dancing over the keyboard in an attempt at making music of another sort, and so I was drawn to this illustration.

I've been "pulling threads" over the last couple of days.  I've had an interesting email exchange with my aunt who dropped a picture on me that I wasn't prepared for.  It's called to the surface a set of questions, a mindfulness, I wasn't prepared for in terms of how I think about myself.  It is a simple picture, a picture of my grandfather, which lead me to exchange additional emails with my aunt, and then my father.  The picture opened a door to a subject I had never considered, like the muse dropping inspiration on the unwitting artist.

My grandfather and his first wife

This is the picture that started this process.  It led to other pictures and other questions.  I debated creating a blog post about the subject, but I'm realizing that the material this picture opened for me is more of a long form essay, something that needs to be developed in the longer, more formal rough draft, revision, new draft, revision process that is typical of the work I try to publish in literary magazines and other venues.

Sometimes the past feels like a closed book to us, chapters that are completed and spent.  Other times, the past comes alive for us, a place to be explored, a darkened room in which we stumble around and grope at the walls for a switch that will light the darkness.  This picture feels like the latter, or a doorway to the latter.

I'm excited to explore the subject in detail.  One never knows where inspiration is going to strike, but we must all remain open to it.