the burroughs folio - the secret dreamer (2)

satisfaction (and where to find it)

first & foremost, satisfaction is to be found puttering in the studio, idly fixing things:

taking the splitting wine crate-cum-cd shelf off the wall to reinforce the joins and level it.  it takes minutes.  it's been staring at me for months, an ugly separation of staple & wood, a widening crevice along a seam, positioned right next to the light switch for the hall closet.  today's the day the crack is sealed and the irregularity ends.  it takes minutes to resolve months of entropy.  why not sooner?  why is now the Right & Proper time for such a simple thing?  and why is it satisfying?

it's an endless source of satisfaction, knowing that everything in the studio is something i have competence in repairing.  if a wire needs replacing, or a switch requires installation, or if carpentry needs doing; knowing i have all the necessary tools & supplies for executing swift & clean repairs

this comes from a childhood spent in relatives' workshops & garages, obsessed with pegboard & circuitry, eyeball deep in a world of belts and capacitors and spindles and vacuum tubes and screws and fuses--  everything must be arrayed in order or nothing can be accomplished... a place for everything & everything geddeouddaheahkidyabotherme.  every barn i ever spent time in had a workshop, a makeshift garage, a surfeit of spare parts.  it is not nostalgia that satisfies me: it is knowing that it was all Purposeful

i may not always get to a fix-it first thing but if it idles long enough it will take priority some fateful day in the studio wherein i am dithering-- not because i do not want to work, but because there is work to do that is not Art, and it is through the perfection of those specific labours that my mind is cleared of everything but Craft; and it is in that state, finally, that i am best prepared to wield my brush & inspired to Do, and Make, all thinking & saying spent.  there is only the Moment of implement applied to paper, and that is not simply enough:  it is simply everything

self-reflection, thy name is studio time

 looking at the tarot project, which i still haven't given a proper name to, as a whole, meditating on balance

 i think i've got something going on.  i think i'm bringing the notions to fruition.  the series is still only a quarter-way to realized.  only the major arcana are developed.  the individual suits will take a moment.  but i figure prints of the arcana will be a good foothold to launch the initial print run of full-size reproductions.  i'm only selling pencil prints for a select few of the major arcana; it will not be all 22

22.  let's focus on that number for just a moment, shall we?  the tarot numbers the major arcana at 0-21.  what else has 22 as a baseline?  the 22-page comic pamphlet

that was the reason i started this whole damn thing, i recall.  the idea that the tarot is just a story that explains itself asynchronous-ly.  so i started drawing them.  the first one was simple enough.  i just stunt casted michael moorcock's queer spirit of our aeon, jerry cornelius, as the fool.  there's a nice picture by mal dean of jerry dressed very improbably & making a war face as he brandished a hawk, a bat, and some nice flowers wrapped in newspaper while a violin dangled from a literal noose, strung from his elbow

*  jerry is notable for being a comic book character first & a creature of letters second

i'm pretty proud of the shoes in that picture.  that's some tasty ink.  but where was i?  the series

yeah, 22 panels for a comic told out of order.  that was the original notion.  a story that would tell itself to you anew every time you did a tarot reading.  and, hopefully, a jump start on financing the rest of deck, and printing the tarot cards themselves

i might, just for a larf, print up the arcana as a comic.  i'd do my best to randomize the 22.  that'd be a good way to test the quality of the fine detail work in reduction.  i'm doing some really ornate touches and i know that stuff's gonna vanish when it's shrunk to tarot scale, so, yeah.  a randomized "comic" isn't entirely masturbatory cashgrab, methinx

"I can take the hut set anywhere."

(Quote from 'Cities of the Red Night'.  Context.)

The studio is my home.  It's good to be home.

You wouldn't think arranging a bunch of tiny fuckin' boxes would take so much time...