EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALApril 26, 1999
Calle Conde de Barajas, Seville
It’s The Writing That Teaches You
Isaac Asimov said, "It’s the writing that teaches you."
Looking through my journal is a humbling experience. We are approaching our eighth
month of traveling. That’s eight months of this journal and I have come to a few
conclusions.
In the beginning, my journal didn’t have anything going for it except for the fact
that it existed. In preparation for our Mosey I had only one goal: to explore the journal
concept. We didn’t know what we were doing, we didn’t know where it would lead
us. We didn’t know what was going to happen. In ways we still don’t know these
things. Following a creative drive requires what Steinbeck called a blend of faith and
arrogance – a blind optimism, and the ability to stay in the dark about your own
self-consciousness.
I realize now, looking at my feelings and the way I have expressed them that I was and
still am an unprimed canvas – stiff and porous, taking the paint – taking a lot
of paint – but with perhaps too much translucency and not enough sophistication in
the blending. The learning curve is good – it is just what I wanted when I felt the
need to leave my studio and investigate. Now my urges bring me full circle back to my
paintings, with the added joy of processing my experiences in this laptop.
It’s the writing that teaches you. Like it’s the painting that teaches you.
Or dancing –building muscles, or walking – knowing places, or photographing
– knowing the parametres of your lens and depth of field. Isn’t it amazing that
by doing something, by trying something, by pushing it day after day, in ignorance, in
green youth, in utter experimentation you can learn enough to realize what you might gain
from it? I understand now that my drives to explore these things are uncontrolled. I
simply want to try. The writer David Edding said, "Start early and work hard. A
writer’s apprenticeship usually involves writing a million words (which are then
discarded) before he’s almost ready to begin. That takes awhile." I know this is
true for painting. I know this is true for almost any act. Building skill, building
familiarity with the tools is an ongoing exercise. When I sat down at the electric pottery
wheel with Jenny Haddelton, my high school Art teacher and an admirable potter, she said
to me, "Now you are at the top of a ski hill and you haven’t any idea of how to
ski. The only way you can understand how to do it is to push off."
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