I said with a flicker of a smile, “Bits and pieces of madness in my words, no,” I shook my head, “I really don’t think so. I am the sanest of men, a little different maybe but that’s all.”
She laughed quietly, “is that what you think, is that how you delude yourself,” her smile broadened.
Art Madd
Sometimes you just have to wonder what on earth your parents were thinking of when they named you. My surname is bad enough on its own (Madd) and about all my parents could come up with to stick in front of it was “Art”. So here I am Art Madd a sometimes good, sometimes indifferent writer of sorts. My publisher is always threatening to give up on me but somehow he never gets around to doing so, it’s been that way for more than twenty years. “You’re not consistent,” he says, “you write a book that sells, everybody is happy and then you follow it with a story so far out in left field I’ve got to ask myself if the same person wrote it. You’re a shmuck,” he says, “I got kids to feed. then I think maybe you got talent but I just don’t see it. Okay, okay we go to print; maybe only God knows why I do it, I think maybe this is the last time. You got to bring me gold sometime; you got to sweeten the pot. You’re breaking my heart” he says, “you’re sending me broke.” And so it goes and twenty years later I’m still a shmuck and he hasn’t gone broke and he is still publishing what I write. “You got to bring me gold sometime you got to sweeten the pot a little, maybe you got a little talent” he says “but you’re still a shmuck.”
Art Madd, a writer of sorts. I live inside my head and sometimes I cross over to the other side, it’s mostly where the stories come from, that quiet place where thought may not trespass. Art is like that it consumes you like a fine madness and it can take you where many fear to go and lift you to heights undreamed of, bending space and time, shifting perception, opening doors to alternate realities, affording glimpses of other dimensions, parallel worlds and Heaven’s Gate itself where thought shimmers in light: Maybe that’s why in some parts of the world artists and free thinkers are hunted down and slaughtered, or at best have the art beaten out of them, so much are they feared. Free thought the prerogative of life, only it isn’t is it. But I live here not there and according to some I am a writer of sorts, which is to say my stories don’t fit any one particular category. I live inside my head but then who doesn’t except maybe I’m in there more than most chasing light don’t you know, Heaven’s Gate and one day I will get there open the gate and walk on through and its for sure I won’t come back, you can always return, I once wrote in a book, but you can never go back. Anyway that’s me Art Madd, with a head full of stories and thoughts that dip and soar, linger and drift like blue smoke on the wind, like choral voices echoing in deep valleys visioning wild horses running free, manes streaming in windy moonlight. It is easy then to forget for a while that sometimes shadows have teeth that nip and tear the soul if you forget to take it along for the ride. Souls get lonely like tired old ghosts with nowhere to go and shadows are blimps and blimps are shadows with teeth that hang around waiting for a chance to move in to nip and tear.
I have a friend, an artist by the name of Michelle Mainwaring. She paints, sculpts and designs jewellery. I have always admired her paintings, I think maybe she has a touch of creative genius in her soul, and like the majority of artists the world over, she has struggled for years to gain recognition for her art, and then one day it all came together. Her work was displayed in a small gallery in Perth, West Australia. It attracted the right kind of attention and later at The Maurice, one of London’s premier galleries, Maurice de Lyons, an aging dapper Frenchman with galleries in both London and Paris, a wealthy soft spoken man; A legend in art circles who could with a soft voiced opinion make or break an artist’s career. To put it in perspective if de Lyons stood forth to champion an artist such would be akin to a totally unknown pop group coming out of nowhere to score a top ten hit. To simply have one’s art on display at The Maurice would be something of a minor miracle in itself. No it isn’t fair, why should one man have the power to make or break an artist, what about talent surely that must have something to do with it, but then where the arts are concerned fair has little to do with much of anything. Talent will always show, you hear people say but that’s mostly just bullshit a sort of spurious PR so to speak, its people like de Lyons who decide if an artist is going to make it or not, fame or oblivion. But you don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth so when a de Lyons comes along climb on board and enjoy the ride. Modigliani, one of the great artists to grace this earth lived a ruinous life of penury and died flat broke. During the course of Modigliani’s life his sometime rival Picasso was oftimes stretched to match his talent. The difference was that Picasso moved in the right circles, he knew the right people and became a very wealthy man. Modigliani had no time for the right people. He died in poverty and yet his elongated, haunting figures are eternal. So no, fair doesn’t have all that much to do with the arts. Mind you I don’t think anyone in their right mind ever thought that it did. Anyway my friend’s art was on display at The Maurice and I had been invited to attend the opening night. There’d be wine by the bucket load I was told and nibbles by the ton. Mostly I just wanted to view my friend’s art in a premier setting so to speak, and forget for a while that sometimes shadows have teeth.
Some months prior to what would later turn out to be a memorable evening I read a book, though I can’t for the life of me recall the author’s name, that purported to deal with the subliminal creative principle, the building block of art (all forms) and, supposedly the unifying influence of art to artist claiming to answer the imponderable why one artist chooses to paint another to write, or sing or whatever and so on, of course it did no such thing. A little further into the book, the author somewhat authoritatively, states that the creative energy line is actually a form of madness, as real to the artist as the everyday walk around world is to the man in the street. He goes further, there’s a chapter in the book that deals with a wealthy but otherwise ultra conservative family who have three children; one of the three is artistically inclined. The parents fail to understand why this one child is different and commit the young person to a very expensive, we can help you readjustment establishment, and that’s just a little bit creepy and a whole lot of weird, the implied threat being, we love you but conform to our ideals or else! I didn’t bother to finish the book, after reading that, something inside me cringed every time I turned a page.
So here I am at The Maurice wondering around with a drink in my hand viewing my friend’s paintings, oil on canvas full of light and colour, the kind that pulls you in and sweeps you away. There’s something about great art that is impossible to define so you just keep coming back for more. I began to drift away, art and music open a door for me every time, when suddenly a young woman, a complete stranger I might add, walked up to me and said ---- .
“Are you mad,” she queried guilessly? Midst the muted murmur of a hundred conversations I stood in a pool of silence and stared at her somewhat bemused, and then something in her eyes something of light and shadow reached out toward me with such intensity it was almost physical and then it was gone, so I dare say I only imagined it, like a sudden compression of space and time about a radio band wide.
I shook my head slowly in the negative and remained silent; curious to hear what she might say next, it wasn’t long in coming. A thin tentative smile fluttered across her face like a fledgling taking wing unsure if it will soar or plummet like a stone.
“The reason I ask,” she said in a whipped cream voice, “is because James Petersonn” I stared at her blankly, “James Petersonn, surely you know who James Petersonn is?” I shook my head. She gave me a tight, bright smile her voice licking out like a sliver of salt, a flickering, tenebrous look in her eyes and then it was gone. Shadows have teeth, I thought to myself and sometimes light is a blade. People milled around voices rising and falling like warm surf, and yet I felt oddly alone, isolated in a pool of silence, the girl’s voice floating like a leaf. Her eyes, there was something wrong with her eyes.
“You’re a writer,” she paused for a moment then said, “you must at least have heard of him, he’s famous, he writes for newspapers and art magazines.”
I sighed and tried a smile of my own but it slipped away before reaching my face. She just stood there gazing at me with a, how come you don’t know James Petersonn kind of look on her face, like he was God’s own scribe or some such thing. She said “Petersonn claims all artists, and that includes writers who actually create stories, are mad to a greater or lesser degree, not certifiably mad just mad in their art form, he says they have to be else they would never write or paint anything of lasting worth. Sane artists just don’t cut it, he says. I’ve read some of your books” she continued, “there are bits and pieces of madness lurking in your words, don’t you think so?”
There it was again, something moved in her eyes and for an instant no more than that, the gallery, the hum of voices seemed to move away. I could see Maurice and Michelle over the girl’s shoulder standing to the right of the gallery’s open door, stained glass panels shimmering blue and red, green and rose. Only I seemed to view them both from a distance as though they were moving away whilst yet standing still, the murmur of voices slipping down into a widening pool of silence that rippled like water and then everything clicked back into place and I wondered if some arty smart arse had slipped something into my drink, but of course no one had, it was the no name girl standing in front of me, what, I wondered, does she want with me. I was more curious than afraid; actually I couldn’t see or sense anything to be afraid of.
I said with a flicker of a smile, “Bits and pieces of madness in my words, no,” I shook my head, “I really don’t think so. I am the sanest of men, a little different maybe but that’s all.”
She laughed quietly, “is that what you think, is that how you delude yourself,” her smile broadened.
“Shadows have teeth” a voice trilled in my head “shadows have teeth”
“Are you driven when you dream,” she bored in, “do you dream in full colour with surround sound, do you feel, taste and smell, is there emotion, love, pain, anger, loss, hope and happiness in your dream” she continued. “When you wake up is the dream more real to you than the world you stand in?”
I stared at her, something weird was happening but I wasn’t exactly sure what, only the air didn’t feel right and there was something wrong with the light as though it were bent. Can you bend light, actually bend it and turn it back on itself, knowing you could but wanting to ask myself the question anyway; you can bend space and time too.
“Slow down,” I said with an edge to my voice, “where are you going with all this and ------.”
“Hollows,” she said, “hollows in the wind, gaps in sunlight where voices step through.” Her eyes turned black, dead sheenless black like soot like three am when all the light in the sky has gone, black holes in her face. The blackness in her eyes moved, flowing out towards me, slithering through the air like venom or was it. What was it, was there anything there at all?
“Who are you?”
“You know me,” she said, “you have always known me you just don’t recognise me this time round but you will,” she said, “you will. I am the hollow in you, where the words come from. I am awake when you sleep I am the creative principle in your soul. I am what others less sure fear and admire, I am the art in you, and you of all people know art is incapable of definition. Art like time is an abstract, art and time conceal and reveal both the abstract, and the concept of the abstract the artist reveals via a freely chosen art form, that is in itself formless and incapable of being reduced through or by definition. Art does not communicate, art has no voice, art is created and exists independent of communication. Communication is what people use to try and explain art. Art speaks only to those who occupy the location art exists in. In essence art is artless. Art is a creative force emotionally inspired. Art is the emotion that speaks to you via the artist’s creation. It is not a voice, it is not a communication. It is the visceral emotion of something in movement.
Time is an abstract incapable of definition. Art is an abstract in the space others assume time occupies. It is there inside you or it is not. Art does not allow middle ground to exist. One may learn rules and laws governing art but one cannot be taught art, the creative principle, or gift if you like is either there or it is not, anything less is simply a variant copy of something else. Art creates newly in its own space --- well --- anyway,” she suddenly changed tack, the dense black in her eyes seeming to lighten a little, “James Petersonn said, writers like you have to believe in what they write no matter how fantastic it might be because it’s the only way you can believe in yourself.”
“Rubbish,” I interrupted curtly. She reared back as though I’d slapped her across the face her eyes bright and wary like the eyes of a startled crow.
And then she leaned in close towards me and said in a tight controlled voice, “in you, where art in its artlessness is created, I will place hollows and visit weeping in your soul, and in your heart I will place joy, and in your gut the tense restlessness of unsleeping butterflies and the dragon quest of seeking, of yearning of striving towards something that has no name, the timeless, artlessness of art itself, the song of the universe in a different way, myriad expression of spirit without end.
We left the gallery together, though I can’t rightly say why. We are still together in a loose sort of way I’m at a loss to explain or understand. It isn’t love, well not exactly though I sometimes like to think it comes close. Truth is I don’t know what it is. When she holds me close, the warm breath of her whispering in my ear, her lips soft against mine pressing and eager, the world I know along with any sense of time drift away carrying me who knows where and when I finally come back down to earth again I have no clear recollection of hours or days or even weeks but I can tell you its not love, well, not exactly. Think about art she says but I’m no longer sure what art is, my foolish name perhaps, Art Madd, yes maybe I am, just a little.
Her glamour her spell the very enchantment she weaves lives inside my head like a haunt. You would think that when I realised what she was that I would run screaming into the night. I think about it but somehow I just never get around to doing it, truth is I don’t think I could run fast enough or far enough to escape her glamour. She would find me I’m sure of it and I can’t say I really want to think about that. When she goes away, I never ask where or why, but I think about her damn near every waking hour and I can’t sleep for thinking of her and that can’t be healthy now can it, like she is in my head her dark sooty eyes watching me from the inside out. No it isn’t love not exactly truth is I don’t know what it is but it ain’t love I can tell you that, spooky eyes walking my spine like cold fingers tap, tap, tapping. Mostly I’d say she scares me to death and that can’t be right, love should never make you feel that way and yet, I just can’t seem to gather the will to walk away. Glamoured, snared like a rabbit in a noose the moment we met at The Maurice. Her eyes are black, a deep lustreless black and I swear to god sometimes when she looks at me something moves in their depth. Shadows have teeth. “I will place hollows in your mind and visit weeping in your soul,” that’s what she said, like she’d scooped out a hole in my head to live in.
She often leaves without a word said and then suddenly one day she returns and there you go, I’m snared again and the noose tightens just a little bit more and one day her glamour will shred my flesh squeezing me in like a rotting stump standing dead in the sun and I know I should run but I just can’t let go. Her smile stuns my senses her warm breath in my mouth, cinnamon and cloves and I don’t know what day it is or if its morning, noon or night, she tastes of lavender and apples ripening in the sun only she’s got shadows for eyes and shadows have teeth and I just can’t seem to dredge up the will or the strength to run, and one day I’ll stand enervated and palled like a corpse and when there is nothing left maybe she will move on and leave me to sleep myself to death wrapped in what little of her glamour remains like a funeral shroud binding me tight. Old bones and candlelight, books on the shelf a shiver of glass art on the walls. Art Madd is my name. Art Madd, she asked when first we met and yes I am, writers and poets, artists and saints, sinners and saviours are all mad too because no one in their right mind willingly steps up to the firing line standing like a target in the sun.
And she scares me to death in the cold black night when she seems not to breathe at all, just laying there cool and still her white flesh gleaming pale in the darkness like bone in the eerie light of a waning moon and I can’t recall what day it is or if the night is dark at all. Hollows and illusions and beneath the fragrance of lavender, of cinnamon and apple a faint elusive smell of something rotting of something corrupt taints the very air I breath. Layer upon layer, like art, taint beneath fragrance, layer upon layer like art. What is art, does anyone know, what is not art, can you at least answer that? No, I didn’t think so. The artlessness of art, the wonder of it. “Are you mad,” she asked; yes I think so, just a little now and then. And I don’t think I can break free. I don’t think she will ever leave me. Her name is art, her name is the creative spark and she lives in a scooped out hollow inside my head and in the very fabric of my being.
Perhaps art may very well be summed up, but not defined in a single word, reily, it means something abstract made physical.
Sometimes shadows have teeth so its probably best if you try to stand in the sun, but not like a target you are better than that, your art form transforms you, it lifts you up it breathes presence in the pores of your skin it shines like a light in your soul it makes you whole and uniquely you, and if shadows bite stand in the sun, and if you fall rise up again, and if no one cares to acknowledge your art, stand in the sun let words and colours run, mix them again, create another song and in its melody, in all that flowing away God’s will be done and yours too.
Art is the secret harmonic in the song that sings life in all things.
Love this: with a head full of stories and thoughts that dip and soar, linger and drift like blue smoke on the wind, like choral voices echoing in deep valleys visioning wild horses running free, manes streaming in windy moonlight. It is easy then to forget for a while that sometimes shadows have teeth that nip and tear the soul if you forget to take it along for the ride.
Terrific write.
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