In a new book, The Long Run: A Creative Inquiry, Stacey D’Erasmo asks half a dozen artists, “How do we keep doing this—making art?” I read it avidly, devouring D’Erasmo’s profiles of a painter, a composer, a garden designer, and others, especially enjoying the “fugitive, occasional memoir” (her words) that her disclosures about herself add up to.
The first personal website I ever created, in the late nineties, had a landing page that appeared to be the basic “404 Not Found” sites would return at the time, and you had to look closely to see that it was actually a valid page, and had a link further in. I think about that Winnicott passage a lot.
Hey, I think this is fascinating on a number of levels. It is, for me (and I think for many people), a wonderful aspect of reading that one piece will remind one of another…and another…that the author of the first piece may not have had in mind at all when writing that first piece.
The theme encapsulated in the Winnicott quote of the need to communicate and the drive not to be found resonated, for me, with elements of Edmund White’s Sado Machismo and Sontag’s Fascinating Fascism in their attempts to think about leathermen (for me, White is far the more perceptive); the combination of the definitive parade with the simultaneous hiding of the self in a uniform shared only by other leathermen (and, the girl’s quote from Proverbs “what a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” is, in an almost extraordinary coincidence, pitch-perfect in its description of the state)strikes me as another area in which the joy to be hidden and the disaster not to be found, of the dichotomy between revealing and completely covering up simultaneously, is at play. At first sight this may seem too peculiar or idiosyncratic a response to your piece about these forces at play in the work of an artist, and I guess the personal links one makes when reading are actually both of those things, however your piece was so interesting and involving that not to set this out would have missed out half of my response. So, on balance, it seemed better to do so.
I’m a guy who is writing a story, rather than a writer (indeed, I fight very shy of that claim…I just don’t buy into that shtick, even if in the current creativity zeitgeist it may be well-intentioned, of a kind of twist on nominative determinism - I’ve enough of that elsewhere) My decision to do so here on Substack has elements of your point of being made use of, and of how dangerous that sometimes feels. Because I’m not a writer in the accepted sense of being published out here in the big wide analogue world of books in bookshops and articles in periodicals, my story is on here for free; that means anyone can read it which I really dig, and that the only return I receive is knowing that some people actually read it…but that’s an odd dynamic. Emma Gannon wrote very perceptively about the use of paid subscriptions and the positive effect they have on her sense of herself as a writer…a reduction, as I read it, in some of that danger via the cash nexus. I really got what she said. But, it’s not for me (nor, it seems, for you as on reading this piece I subscribed to your Stack and no option to pay came up)
The Gorey scene is intriguing. One of the first books I was given as child by my brothers was The Gilded Bat, and it was one of the books that opened the portal into the world of reading, of story (very economically told…not a virtue I have learnt), and of illustration. I was enthralled but its whole vibe, and to this day it remains a book I return to. Someone, and it bugs me that I can’t remember who (Arlene Croce?) wrote of Gorey, in his combination of exhibitionism and shyness (his need to communicate and drive not to be found) when he went to the ballet that he u sees told exactly what he was doing.
Writing about this - both in fiction and generally, as in this reply - is, to use your term at the end of the piece, a tricky game to keep playing; it’s a hard (I have no idea how anyone will read it, this letting myself by myself to be made use of by myself by my writing whilst holding on to the integrity of the self, and have no idea whether that matters or not) but useful paradox.
I love the Winnicott so much that HIDE & SEEK was a working title for my last two books. I know Dylan’s everywhere right now, but to me, he’s the artist who embodies this the most — hiding in plain sight, but the minute he’s found, back to hiding again, in an endless cycle
Yes, we saw "Complete Unknown" last week, and probably his story, too, was in my mind when I wrote this! He's definitely one of the most famous examples of the artist who keeps changing in order not to ever be definitively found out by his fans, and one of the few who even goes so far as to make explicit his dislike of being found by his fans. Go, Team Winnicott!
I really love this. I have such a distinct memory of watching the Mystery opening credits over my mom's shoulder as a kid, and I've loved Gorey ever since. I always read out of his illustrated Dracula when I teach Dracula - I did a gothic workshop last autumn and Gorey manages to somehow be gothic while also lightening the mood! Really interesting when you say: "it brought home to me how strange it is that for the sake of my career I’ve agreed to be exposed."
I hadn't thought about the availability (and veracity) of information about people on the Internet relating to their careers, though of course it does! Lots to think about - thank you!
The first personal website I ever created, in the late nineties, had a landing page that appeared to be the basic “404 Not Found” sites would return at the time, and you had to look closely to see that it was actually a valid page, and had a link further in. I think about that Winnicott passage a lot.
That’s ingenious!
Hey, I think this is fascinating on a number of levels. It is, for me (and I think for many people), a wonderful aspect of reading that one piece will remind one of another…and another…that the author of the first piece may not have had in mind at all when writing that first piece.
The theme encapsulated in the Winnicott quote of the need to communicate and the drive not to be found resonated, for me, with elements of Edmund White’s Sado Machismo and Sontag’s Fascinating Fascism in their attempts to think about leathermen (for me, White is far the more perceptive); the combination of the definitive parade with the simultaneous hiding of the self in a uniform shared only by other leathermen (and, the girl’s quote from Proverbs “what a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” is, in an almost extraordinary coincidence, pitch-perfect in its description of the state)strikes me as another area in which the joy to be hidden and the disaster not to be found, of the dichotomy between revealing and completely covering up simultaneously, is at play. At first sight this may seem too peculiar or idiosyncratic a response to your piece about these forces at play in the work of an artist, and I guess the personal links one makes when reading are actually both of those things, however your piece was so interesting and involving that not to set this out would have missed out half of my response. So, on balance, it seemed better to do so.
I’m a guy who is writing a story, rather than a writer (indeed, I fight very shy of that claim…I just don’t buy into that shtick, even if in the current creativity zeitgeist it may be well-intentioned, of a kind of twist on nominative determinism - I’ve enough of that elsewhere) My decision to do so here on Substack has elements of your point of being made use of, and of how dangerous that sometimes feels. Because I’m not a writer in the accepted sense of being published out here in the big wide analogue world of books in bookshops and articles in periodicals, my story is on here for free; that means anyone can read it which I really dig, and that the only return I receive is knowing that some people actually read it…but that’s an odd dynamic. Emma Gannon wrote very perceptively about the use of paid subscriptions and the positive effect they have on her sense of herself as a writer…a reduction, as I read it, in some of that danger via the cash nexus. I really got what she said. But, it’s not for me (nor, it seems, for you as on reading this piece I subscribed to your Stack and no option to pay came up)
The Gorey scene is intriguing. One of the first books I was given as child by my brothers was The Gilded Bat, and it was one of the books that opened the portal into the world of reading, of story (very economically told…not a virtue I have learnt), and of illustration. I was enthralled but its whole vibe, and to this day it remains a book I return to. Someone, and it bugs me that I can’t remember who (Arlene Croce?) wrote of Gorey, in his combination of exhibitionism and shyness (his need to communicate and drive not to be found) when he went to the ballet that he u sees told exactly what he was doing.
Writing about this - both in fiction and generally, as in this reply - is, to use your term at the end of the piece, a tricky game to keep playing; it’s a hard (I have no idea how anyone will read it, this letting myself by myself to be made use of by myself by my writing whilst holding on to the integrity of the self, and have no idea whether that matters or not) but useful paradox.
I love the Winnicott so much that HIDE & SEEK was a working title for my last two books. I know Dylan’s everywhere right now, but to me, he’s the artist who embodies this the most — hiding in plain sight, but the minute he’s found, back to hiding again, in an endless cycle
Yes, we saw "Complete Unknown" last week, and probably his story, too, was in my mind when I wrote this! He's definitely one of the most famous examples of the artist who keeps changing in order not to ever be definitively found out by his fans, and one of the few who even goes so far as to make explicit his dislike of being found by his fans. Go, Team Winnicott!
PLAYING & REALITY is a jam
I really love this. I have such a distinct memory of watching the Mystery opening credits over my mom's shoulder as a kid, and I've loved Gorey ever since. I always read out of his illustrated Dracula when I teach Dracula - I did a gothic workshop last autumn and Gorey manages to somehow be gothic while also lightening the mood! Really interesting when you say: "it brought home to me how strange it is that for the sake of my career I’ve agreed to be exposed."
I hadn't thought about the availability (and veracity) of information about people on the Internet relating to their careers, though of course it does! Lots to think about - thank you!
Thanks! I’m pretty sure the Mystery credits were my gateway in, too.
Can you share the title of the Winnicott essay?
Found it! If anyone is interested, it's "Communicating and Not Communicating Leading to a Study of Certain Opposites" in the Collected Works, vol. 6
Wonderful essay, thank you!
Yes! It’s also in the collection “The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment,” which is actually the book I have
Oh good, those collected works are super expensive!
Wonderful essay, happy to find this newsletter.
This was beautiful. Thank you.
Thanks so much!