What is the connection between artistic expression and the joy of living? How can one best live a literary life? This book is a collection of small word-projects. Each examines a book, a moment, a story that helps to deepen the author's literary adv...
Detours are what make life great. In April 2014, several months after my mom passed away, I took an epic detour to the Kanagawa Art Museum.
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I took the train to Yokosuka and then walked the rest of the way there. As I remember it, it was an overcast day for most of the walk. I had melancholy memories of a Cuban mother with capacity for passion and kindness in equal measure.
Her spirit drives me toward ever greater detours.
I saw the art of Shin Miyazaki. Shin Miyazaki's art was greatly shaped by his experiences during the war and in a Soviet Labor camp. A not so nice detour...they can't all be nice...
Shin Miyazaki traveled, looking for subjects to paint. He's also done paintings of Hiroshima! He dwells on harsh environments, especially mud. Mixed media. He works from found objects. "The earth that absorbs everything" is the name of one of his works. Most works are in oil, mixed media, jute cloth, cotton cloth, and plywood.
The newer works have less coherence and realism. The older works resemble faces, many of the mangled by hardship.
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If I were an artist, what would my art be shaped by? Sand. Paper. Ocean water.
The Kanagawa Art Museum is near the coast. The walk around the art museum is as beautiful as the museum itself.
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I should call my next short story collections: "Detours."
I should add QR codes with music.
There should be as many pictures as there are sentences.
What detours await me? What detours await you?
I remember a detour taken nearly a decade ago and try to be that version of myself, both in pain and in love the world.
