immortality or oblivion

i have this visual file that i've actually made into a collage. part and parcel of julia cameron's artist's way. i love that book. i live by the principals. save the pages, i haven't done the pages in a year and a half probably.

but this visual file, was shoved in the moving van after i almost left it in texas. my best friend who is a visual artist would not see me leave it behind, and i'm so glad she took it upon herself to make it come with me.

though it is often gathered up and shoved behind the tv by one who shares my home, and piled behind clutter sometimes by others. i try to look at it as much as possible, adding to it as i can.

one thing i have never changed from the outset is a picture of a goldfish swimming in a blender with the line below it that says, immortality or oblivion?

this speaks to me.

surrounding that picture are a bunch of quotes about art, seeing it in a new way. the opportunities are endless. write naked. those sorts of things. the kinds of things i try to live my life by.

but ultimately, we do not know if it will be immortality or oblivion. even our simplest, or seeming simplest artistic ventures can be lost to time and disinterest, or they can become something.

i do not have my heart set on immortality, but i do have my heart set on creating art regardless of the reception i get today. will that art end up pureed? it's not up to me. it's up to me to do the best i can with what i've got. these eyes, these ears, this heart, these lungs.

whatever results from it, is the product of faithfulness to my calling and perhaps it will mean something to someone else.

i do not lie awake devising means of making this happen.

it will either happen on its own or it won't, nothing i can do about that either way.

but i can do my best to be faithful to the muse. faithful to the voice i hear.

this is seen as hardheadedness by some, stubbornness by others, outright ignorance by still others.

but adhereing to a straight and narrow has never appealed to me.

the trod path has been worn down all ready, no need for me to venture there.

sure there is great merit in study and honing up on the masters, but the masters had their day. they had their chance to be faithful to the muse, to the voice they hear.

this is my chance.

immortality or oblivion.

remains to be seen.