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I’ve been drawing all my life and painting since middle school, so it should come as no surprise that my goal was to become an artist. Yet in college, where I studied art, I took all the history courses I could and came to enjoy writing term papers. Yes, you read that correctly. I suppose those 20-page dives into the past became a ‘gateway drug’. Though over the years my creative focus remained on art, specifically painting and selling through galleries, I began to develop a growing ‘writing problem’. It started with articles about gallery and museum shows. Then came artistic interviews and bios of local artists that tried to explicate their work. Some of these pieces can still be found on my art website: www.jacksonpointart.com.

Nevertheless, I considered writing about the arts and other artists as a sideline to my work as an artist. Then I hit the hard stuff — fiction. Oh, along the way, I’d flirted with it. I’d attempted a couple of novels in my salad days, but they remained suitably unfinished and forgotten. Then, sitting in a coffee shop in Mobile, Alabama, my wife and I sketched out ideas for a novel set in Atlanta in 1866. After years of work and many drafts, An Uncertain Peace will be published this fall. Jennifer Chesak, my editor at Wandering in the Words Press, played an indispensable role, prodding me for changes, calling for rewrites, pushing me along as a good idea was shaped into a novel worthy of it.

But frankly, I would have abandoned the project without my wife. Indeed, I did abandon it more than once, but she believed during the times when I didn’t. You see, I saw myself as a painter, and when the frustrations grew too great, I could flee to the studio, confident I was making the right choice–a man running from the opium den of fiction back to a more sensible way of life. My wife always gently nudged me back to the den.

Once you’ve managed a novel, there isn’t any literary thrill that’s out of bounds. Courses on the short story and flash fiction have come and gone. Indeed, I’m currently working on a book of short fiction. A largely completed novel set in Italy and France has been discussed with the good Ms. Chesak. A follow-up to An Uncertain Peace is banging around in my brain. But still the painting goes on. I need that. Art and I have been lovers for too long for me to walk out the door forever, and she always understands and welcomes me home.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the book launch for An Uncertain Peace will be held on Friday, October 10th, at In-Town Gallery in Chattanooga, the gallery that represents my art. Two of the loves of my life (my wife and kids, excepted) will be there, sitting together for a change, sharing the evening.

 

The following post was published in October 2013.  I’m re-posting it on this website since it illustrates how the arts can, even on a rainy day in London, bring enchantment to life.

I was thirteen when I decided to become an international jewel thief. Like many criminal decisions, mine was impulsive, and it involved a woman — Grace Kelly. The YMCA in my hometown used to show old movies. During an hour and a half in the dark, watching Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, I discovered my future life. Grace Kelly and I would live in a chateau overlooking the Mediterranean. We would spend our days stealing jewels while engaging in witty banter. She would be my lover. We would be very sophisticated.

To Catch a Thief is still a great favorite of mine. My youngest daughter, Molly, who lives in London, arranged for us to see it at the British Film Institute during one of my visits. The BFI is not as stodgy as the name might suggest. It offers a full bar and great seating.

This particular visit was in October 2oi2. During my time with Molly and Liam, her husband, we had a wonderful arrangement. Each morning, Liam would bring me a cup of tea (so English!) before he and Molly headed off to work. The evening before, we’d make plans about where to meet for dinner. Until then, I was entirely free. Having all of London to explore is like being given the keys to The Infinite Possibility Machine, something Douglas Adams might have thought up. 

You cannot get the measure of a city until you’ve walked it. When I travel, I spend a good deal of time just wandering, meeting people, and exploring. With that in mind, having decided to go to the Tate Modern and its environs, I took the Tube to Waterloo Bridge station and meandered my way along the Thames. Though it isn’t terribly far from Waterloo Bridge to the Tate, I intended to take my time getting there.

London’s weather is often perceived as predominantly rainy. Londoners will tell you that this is not true. Its dominant feature is changeability — sun at ten o’clock, rain at noon, sun at two, strong wind at five, and more rain at seven. Being a prudent man, I carried an umbrella with me when I left the flat, ready if the sky opened up. It wasn’t much of an umbrella, just something Liam had picked up at Ikea—small and green with large polka dots (he has a sense of whimsy, does Liam). When the time came, it proved hopelessly inadequate against the wind-driven torrent. After lengthening my trip to the Tate by meandering, I now tried to shorten it with a gallop. I arrived at the Tate panting and drenched. My mood was as foul as the weather.

Entrance to the Tate is free, and I strode in, rode the escalator up to the galleries, and began glaring at art. Nothing pleased. Nothing could. My mood was still sour, so I gave up the effort.

The Tate Modern is housed in a former power station. Turbine Hall, where the turbines were once located, is an immense room with concrete floors, a very high ceiling, and no furniture. People pass through it to get to the galleries. I sat down on the floor against a wall (many people do) and sketched the visitors who were coming and going. They were strongly backlit by a huge bank of windows. Watching them, I found it amazing how interesting their figures were with a silhouette and no details. So the day gave me its first gift — the sketches. They provided the visual ideas for a number of paintings and drawings I’ve made since then.

After a time, I was approached by a young woman who asked if she could speak with me. She assured me she was not a panhandler but rather an art student working on a project. Her English was good, though slightly accented. Sometimes, it had an American inflection. We talked a bit. Her name was Sandra. She was from the Ukraine and was a first-year art student. I envied her. Away from home, studying and living in London, her whole life lay before her. She would probably never again feel as alive as she did now. And the American-accented English? She had relatives in the States and spent summers there. She asked me to give her some items of little value that she might put into her art project. She was creating an assemblage from objects gathered from people she met. I gave her a few things, including some U.S. coins I had in my pocket. She asked if she could return the quarter and instead take a dime and a penny, as they might work better visually. She was definitely an artist.

As we were talking, a man standing in the middle of the hall began to sing in a kind of melodic chant. There are crazies everywhere, I thought, and I tried to take no notice. But then another person started. And another. And another. Sandra leaned back against the wall next to me, and we watched. The lights dimmed and brightened, then dimmed again as more people, both men and women, joined in the chant. A flash mob, I wondered? After a few minutes, 50 or more people spaced at different parts of the hall were chanting together. Then they began, one by one, to fall silent and leave. Finally, only the man who’d begun was left. The lights darkened, and he, too, was gone. Sandra rose, thanking me, saying she needed to find others willing to participate in her project.

She was only gone a moment when a man in his 40s sat down next to me. He immediately began talking in a rapid stream of words about how he lived on a Narrow Boat, a very small Narrow Boat because it was only twenty-six feet long, and his room was six feet by twelve feet. He had many friends and felt rich and happy, despite having little money.  Yes, he’d come to London to find success. He had owned things and lived well, but now all that was gone, no longer a burden, and he was happy. He had the things that counted. I tried to ask him questions, but he talked past them. Finally, he shook my hand, thanked me for listening, and walked away.

He joined other people streaming into the hall. More and more arrived, and they began walking about the hall, walking quickly but randomly, almost running into each other at times, then veering off at the last second. Little by little, they began to coalesce, forming units and walking in patterns. Several times, people walked right at me only to turn just short of a collision. The whole hall seemed alive with moving bodies. The lights rose and fell. The manic movement continued until their numbers began to dwindle. Like the chanters, they were soon gone.

Suddenly, a woman in her twenties dropped to her knees in front of me. Like the man before her, she launched into a breathless monologue about herself. When she was a girl, she used to visit her grandmother in Northumberland. Her grandmother lived in a large, drafty house. It was always cold, regardless of the time of year she visited. The worst of it was that the kids had to sleep in a room that was colder than the rest of the house. It was so cold that they called it “Siberia.” As one of the youngest children, she called it that too, though she didn’t know what Siberia was. The comforters were old, lumpy, and heavy, but that was okay because the mattresses were feather mattresses. The weight of the comforter pressed her small body into the softness of the mattress ao she felt warm and safe and wonderful. I begged her to tell me what was going on. She ignored my request several times, but as she rose to go, she whispered that it was a performance piece called “These Associations” by an artist named Tino Sehgal. 

 These Associations

I had been sitting on the concrete floor so long my butt was numb, and my legs were wobbly as I stood to go back into the gallery. I was feeling both at peace and exhilarated with what I’d experienced. From the gallery, I could hear the chanting begin again. This time, it was slower and more melodic. I went to one of the balconies that overlook Turbine Hall. The performers were moving about below me, the intricacies of their movements more apparent from above.

I often dismissed performance art before that day at the Tate. That is no longer the case. I was intrigued and moved by my experience, and have given considerable thought to the implications of my role as an unwitting participant in Sehgal’s performance piece.

When I met up with Molly and Liam, the day continued its enchantment. We dined at Wahaca, a restaurant housed in conjoined shipping containers, which offers South American-inspired cuisine. One of the joys of staying with them is that they know of such places. And Molly had chosen the evening’s entertainment shrewdly. To Catch a Thief worked its magic as it always does, though I must confess my life as a jewel thief never worked out. Long ago, I came to grips with the fact that Grace Kelly would never throw herself into the arms of a thirteen-year-old boy, no matter how much jewelry he stole.

PS: Sandra emailed me photos of her finished project. She did a fine job.

Copyright James Tucker 

Recently, a friend of mine said that she had some good stories in her mind, but that time had passed her by. She was too old to be a writer. Writing was for the young. I didn’t say much, as I suspected that what she meant was that she didn’t have the energy or the will to write.  Still, her words got me to thinking: How can the young write anything good? They do, of course; I won’t argue otherwise. However, when I write, I draw on the fund of experience I’ve accumulated throughout a lifetime that is twice that of some of my young writer friends.

I firmly believe that art and writing can’t be taught. Certainly, writers and artists can be guided in their work; they can learn the craft, but the creative thrust must come from them. I also believe that creation feeds on creation, that is, nothing is cut from whole cloth. Serious artists study other artists, and serious writers read the work of other writers. The process involves using different perspectives to help us build upon who we are. And to have any real sense of who we are, not who we wish we were, but who we actually are, experience is valuable, and in my case, essential. On the other hand, perhaps some young, sensitive, and hardworking souls can find in their green conscious and unconscious selves the gold they seek.

I think for most of us, though, it’s a matter of using our creative Philosopher’s Stone to transmute the base substance of our lives to the more precious level of art. This alchemy is not easy, but with a storehouse of experience, it is possible. I can only write about something I have lived, something I can shape, shade, and develop to express what I want to the reader. And if I have done my job, perhaps the reader will share the experience with me. So, while I applaud twenty-four-year-old Stephen Crane for writing The Red Badge of Courage, or the twenty-year-old Mary Shelley for writing Frankenstein, I know I couldn’t have done it.

There is an old saying in Texas, “When the horse is dead, it’s time to get off.”

As an artist and a writer, that’s good to remember. Sometimes, one must admit that things are not working out as planned. What began with clarity of vision has now become murkiness of purpose. One must finally acknowledge that there isn’t ‘just one more little change’ that will salvage the project. The work is fundamentally flawed. It’s time to set it aside and start over. A hard decision, perhaps, but the wastebasket is your friend. 

Such ruthless judgments are easiest when the work is poor. What is much harder to deal with is a sound idea that isn’t working out. The promise is there, but each attempt to fulfill it falls sadly short. In my experience, the problem lies not in the basic idea or premise but in the approach. That’s why setting the work aside to ‘cool down’ and returning later with fresh eyes is essential. Hidden flaws become apparent. Solutions emerge.

I worked on a short story, titled ‘Dynaflow,’ last week. It’s based on an event in my high school years when I went in with some friends to buy an old car. The plan was to fix it up and use it to date girls. We were, after all, adolescent boys with raging hormones, so our plan seemed not only brilliant but perfectly feasible. Our vision was ‘The Ultimate Makeout Machine.’ Of course, that’s not how things turned out. Our horny little dreams were dashed on the rocks of reality. I thought the story should be comedic, with ever-increasing problems and threats (like the car being stolen in the fictional telling), rising to almost absurd levels.

Except that isn’t what the story wanted to be.

As I ramped up my plot devices and stoked the laughs, my story became increasingly forced and artificial. Tweaking those things didn’t matter because those things weren’t the source of the problem. The actual problem was that I was trying to take my concept in a direction I didn’t have an emotional inclination for. Another writer might have made a laugh-a-minute romp out of the idea, but I am not that writer. I couldn’t use an experience that was as sweet in its way as it was misguided, as a farce. When I strove for laughs, I lost the humanity of the thing.

So now it waits in a drawer. Or rather, it waits in a file labeled ‘Rework’–we don’t use drawers anymore, do we? It waits for a different me who can better grasp the humanity of the thing, allowing the comedy, and I do think there is some, to take care of itself. Then maybe the horse will rise and walk as I had hoped.

As writers, we must have a critical feedback loop. Rather like the body’s immune system, it must be strong enough to ward off what is destructive or unnecessary, but not so strong that it stifles healthy growth. That balance is essential. If the feedback loop is too weak, a writer can’t develop greater facility in the craft. If it’s too strong, a would-be writer will be rendered silent by the shriek of self-criticism.

However, for most of us, the internal loop is not enough. We need the critical eyes of others. Passages that we think are crystal clear may be baffling to the reader. Good sections might be too lengthy, while others are too brief. Our preconceptions, interests, and biases can cloud our judgment. Other eyes see our prose without our unique lens. They don’t see it with our emotional bias.

That is why a critique group is helpful. As others read and comment on one’s work, one comes to see it through their eyes and sensibilities. Good critique groups are a blessing for serious writers, but they are damn hard to find. The problem is that everyone wants praise, and no one wants to hear that what they’ve created has fallen short of expectations. Such emotional needs can cause a writer’s group to slide into a mutual praise society. You wax ecstatic at my work, and I will swoon over yours. We will justify this joyride by telling ourselves we support and nurture one another. We go home happy—but no wiser and no better. When I find myself in such a group, I don’t stay long. The feel-good drives me away.

Recently, Gary, a member of the Chattanooga Writers Guild, started a new critique group. I waffled on whether to attend the first meeting, but in the end, I went. I’m glad I did. After addressing early ‘teething’ issues — too few people at the first meeting, too many at the second, too much time spent on one piece and too little on another — we have now settled into a stable, meaningful group. The critical comments are insightful but not cutting. They focus on the work. I’ve presented short fiction that I felt was ready for submission to journals, and later refined it based on feedback from the group. I hope we can maintain this delicate balance. I hope we can avoid the slippery slope of ego enhancement. I hope we continue to reach ever higher, driven forward by honesty.

A nearly 100-year-old Underwood typewriter came into my life recently. My wife and I went to Atlanta to meet the newest addition to the family, baby Violet. While we were there, we stopped by to see our brother-in-law, and he gave us an old Underwood portable typewriter that had belonged to my wife’s dad. It had been in his basement for years, protected by a sturdy leather case that could withstand a hit from an artillery shell. He referred to it as “an old piece of junk,” although he had never opened it up to take a look. Not to hurt his feelings, we left with it.

When I opened the case, I found a fully functional four-bank Underwood Standard Portable. I looked up the serial number in the typewriter database (yes, such a thing exists), and it was manufactured in 1929. It looks like it was made yesterday. My wife thinks this typewriter may be her father’s from when he went off to college.

I gave the Underwood a try. The action was stiff, but no stiffer than the Sears portable I used when I was a student. The type size was elite, and aside from the slugs needing a cleaning, none were damaged. The fact that the ribbon was usable meant someone, perhaps my sister-in-law, had replaced it more recently. Whether that is the case, we do not know. I was surprised to find I could still bang along at 35-40 words a minute. The action of the keys, so much stiffer than on a computer, gave a satisfying physicality to writing, though the little finger on my left hand wasn’t strong enough to adequately strike the ‘a’.

I started to extemporize a story about cowboys watching and worrying about their herd as a storm approached (yup, ‘It was a dark and stormy night’). What I wrote was, of course, garbage. What interested me was how, even in that short time, I felt more emotionally linked to the words as they appeared on the page. Maybe it was my imagination. Maybe it was the novelty. I don’t know. Still, it was an interesting experience. Am I going to dump my computer and go back to 1929, embracing the world of Ernest and F. Scott? Not on your life. But it was nice to visit.