"Seven Sentences..."

Essay - 00008

“It’s an isolation form of life writing books and making pictures, and it’s the only true happiness I’ve ever, ever enjoyed in my life. And it’s sublime, to just go into another room and make pictures. It’s magic time. Where all your weakness’ of character and all blemishes of personality, and whatever torments you fades away. It just doesn’t matter. You’re doing the one thing you want to do, and you’re doing it well, and you KNOW you do it well!

And you’re happy.” - Maurice Sendak

That paragraph has lived in my wallet since 2009. I remember watching Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak a documentary film directed by Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze, and when Maurice said that those seven sentences I froze… Rewind the tape… What did he just say??? I rewatched Maurice recite those seven sentences over and over again like it was an old VHS recording of my own Grandpa muttering a cherished life lesson in his recliner. I watched it like I watch my favorite skate videos, admiring the style and artistry in the delivery of his wisdom. The thoughtful poise and choice of words. I marinated in the meaning of it all, and felt the reality it spoke into my own way of life.

I wrote it down on a piece of scratch paper immediately. I folded that little piece of paper into 8 small segments and stuffed it into the deepest corner of my wallet. It has lived there, folded up, deep in my back pocket ever since and serves as a Creatives bible verse of sorts. A little affirmation of life and how I intend to live it. I forget that it’s there for years at a time until randomly I find myself digging for some cash, or proof of insurance, buried beneath my Costco card, there it is, those seven sentences. I always smile when I see that scrap of paper, knowing what’s written has been following me around the world for the last couple of decades.

Those seven sentences captured so much of the torment in my own mind, and rang so true to what I believed the author of Where The Wild Things Are must have endured. There’s a reason great art resonates. We’re attracted to the works we find most authentic to our own sense of what life feels like to each of us uniquely. It’s no surprise when the artist of those works that move us so deeply, is also capable of shaping our emotional reaction to the real world. I felt I knew Max better when I met Maurice through that screen and those seven sentences. Then I felt I knew Max on very deep level when I spent the next 16 years with the essence of Where The Wild Things Ares’ existence living in my back pocket, traveling with me every single day. To know Max was also to understand Maurice. And Maurices’ true greatness was that we all knew Max on some level. This was a true artist. This was greatness and genius at the highest level.

As an artist watching and learning from those like Maurice, I not only absorbed so much from careful examination and extrapolation of what I believed was his process through his words, I felt I knew the artist on a very personal level. Great art has that power, to make the audience understand you. A truly phenomenal work of art is an honest gift of deeply personal communication that unintentionally bonds the viewer to the artist. I never met Maurice Sendak, but I knew him well. I felt that bond. So well in fact I carry a little piece of his identity in my pocket and he sparks a fuse of inspiration in me so often I’ve lost track of that fact I didn’t actually know him. That’s a superpower. It’s a superpower likely unrealized by the artist, and perhaps rooted in a deep need to express some degree of pain, but man, what a superpower to hold. The artists’ greatest responsibility perhaps?

It’s also a great irony. “It’s an isolation form of life…”. An isolation which likely led to a masterpiece that ultimately moved millions. I carry that reminder in my pocket everyday and wonder often if I’ll even touch that level of impact? There’s a burden to the pain and the joy of art. To create something that might touch others, but to do it without the intention to influence the narrative. Perhaps that’s the difference between art and marketing. Sublime in action perhaps, a burden in responsibility. Selfish indeed, but when done well, a gift.

It’s become my barometer of great art, of great artists. Does their life change the way I live? Does their art reroute the path of my life? For me, that’s a small list. Maurice, Bourdain, Robin Williams, a small handful of the artists that change the way I navigate the world. But maybe more importantly, the lesson their art offers is in the way we interpret it? I measure arts greatness by how long it sticks to my bones.

I’d like think that when it’s all said and done, the magic time, the weakness’ of my character, the blemishes of my personality, and all the torments in my life will have been worth it. That I’ll be able to believe all of my own time spent in creation, under the shadows and the influence of the greats, will stick someone else’s bones.

I can only hope that my words hold stronger that just a Do Rad Things bumper sticker, but that someday there’s someone out there that has a quote they carry like a love letter to their own life in their pocket for decades at a time. That’s the power of art, and the burden of the artist. Isolating and sublime.

Thank you Maurice, & thank you for giving us Max…