Artistic Statement

Paula Kaskel

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The Artistic Statement

First Section: Start of Semester

"The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then

dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to

make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness." –Tim O’Brien

My friend Sonja is a daydreamer. Sometimes she just zones out and then she is in her own

world, blue eyes wide, lips slightly agape. Like this, she can sit for hours and hours and calls

it wasting time. I tried to convince her it is not, but it is hard for her to accept the worlds her

mind creates.

When I was fifteen, I woke up one Saturday and started telling myself a story. I had slept ten

hours and stayed in bed for six more, doing nothing but conjuring up another universe in my

mind. At 3 pm, my mom came into my room to finally get me out of bed to start the day.

When we write, people say we are productive. When we dream, people say we are burning

daylight. But really, the worlds of writing do not stem from pages, but from minds dreaming

about them first. I want my writing to make my reader fantasize, I want to make them feel like

they are swimming in a sea of stars and coming home to a place they never knew could exist

even in their imagination. But how do you accomplish a work of art with ambitions like that?

Second Section: Poetry Project

"Image – any literary element that creates a sense impression in the mind – and metaphor –

the use of comparison – form the heart of any literary work." – The Basics of Writing in Any

Form; Image and Metaphor

The AC in Lane Library gives me goosebumps, my laptop charger does not fit the power

outlet in my booth, and six feet behind me there is a baby crying its eyes out. I stare at the

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document of selected poetry and wonder how on earth I ever felt inspired in my whole life.

How does inspiration even work? Are the images just supposed to bubble up in my mind and

channel themselves into letters pieced together on the page? Whether they will or not, the

hours keep ticking by, and I have a deadline to meet. So I try to model the lines of the poem

that pulls me in the most: "Fanny Linguistics: Malapropisms" by Nicole Brown. Scrutinizing

this poem makes me realize that words are like Legos: you must find the right type of brick,

no matter the color. Also, you do not need linking bricks to make Legos cohere, just like

verbs and nouns can do the job without adding never-ending adjectives. So, I focus on the

types of words the line has; one is a verb, another a noun. And then I start replacing and

building, writing about "the crippling bloom" instead of "the silent consonant" that is "hosting

vermin" like a "red-petalled death trap" and then everything starts flowing, the "red-petalled

death trap

tempting chaste saplings. Let’s cut it all off,

all of

it but the low clover, four-leaf folks

with soil-steadying skills,

eating up the poppy seeds,"

because even though I want my writing to feel magic, it is not. Instead, it is a craft that needs

to be practiced and refined like any other.

Third Section: Creative Nonfiction

"Your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's." – The

Poet’s Companion; Writing and Knowing

All the selected essays are art. These authors place me in their shoes and walk me through

their stroke of fate or their marvelous epiphany. They grab me, they knead me into their

effigy, a vessel for compassion.

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But what could I possibly write about? Life has not always been easy, and it has hardly ever

been dull, but suddenly I do not have anything to say, nothing to share. I am a common stilt

on a heap of mountains, I would not like reading about me. So, I start writing about the things

I would like to read about: climbing and rocks and the noonday sun. I write about swarms of

bees, wild mushrooms, the damp branches of the pines. I write about how the sun "beat our

tender noses", how I spotted "the climber in his harness", how "he reached out and the rock

held his hand". And then I connect everything and promptly my little moments of observance

and childhood memories morph into a full-size orchestra. Maybe reading about my

experiences would not be so bad after all.

Fourth Section: Fiction

"This mode of revision, then, is ultimately about imagining that your reader is as humane,

bright, witty, experienced and well-intentioned as you, and that, to communicate intimately

with her, you have to maintain the state, through revision, of generously imagining her." –

George Saunders, What writers really do when they write

In my first philosophy class two years ago, I learned about the principle of charity which asks

the reader to interpret the author’s endeavors in a rational and strong way. Simply put, the

reader is supposed to expect the author to make sense.

Now, real-world readers are not charitable. They whip a book down from the shelves of

Barnes & Nobles, devour the first page, and throw the book back if they do not get or like

what is going on. However, when they do like it, you want them to understand it. I do not

want to tinker about with my writing for hours on end just to have it beat most of my readers.

I also want my writing to be an adventure, a little scavenger hunt through scenes and letters. It

is a fine line: Do cufflinks suffice to connote cheating? Are the cufflinks enough to show that

Jeff is plotting to frame William? Do William and Jeff need to reason their actions?

I hand my piece of flash fiction to Sydney, a tutor in the Writing Center. While she skims

through it, my serene glance drifts to the English dictionaries and the leaflets of motivational

quotes.

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"So…," her voice pulls me back into the booth when she is done reading, "your wording is

great, but I do have a few questions."

Suddenly, my stomach feels like I just swallowed a tin of spam whole. I nod, mentally

groaning. It is a fine line.

Fifth Section: End of Semester

"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more

bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for

heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend,

even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You

will have created something." –Kurt Vonnegut

"We could go to the mall tomorrow," Beatriz suggests as we walk our way back from the

dining hall to the dorms.

"I don’t think I can," I sigh, "I’m planning to go to the creative writing club meeting."

Beatriz chuckles and evades my gaze. She is a chemical engineering major, she goes to the

gym every day, and does not beat around the bush. I goggle at her blankly, not seeing what is

so funny about a creative writing club.

"It’s just... why would you go there? What do you even do there?" she asks defensively when

she catches sight of my face.

"We do creative writing? Talk about creative writing?" I continue to stare at her, trying to

figure out what exactly is so hard to understand about it. She stares back, trying to fathom

how she could possibly explain her problem.

"I would just never choose to go to a writing thing in my spare time…" she sighs finally,

"That’s like school stuff, or work." When I say nothing, she adds, "Are you writing a book?

Will you publish it?" Again, I do not respond. The bits and pieces of my current writing will

hardly even make it into a publisher's office.

Paula Kaskel

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But as we shuffle along the muddy trail merging the sidewalks, I realize that being able to

cherish art is a gift on its own. And that I do not have to accomplish a masterpiece in order to

enjoy creating it.