Merrily We Roll Along

Listening to that little voice in my head on Cape Cod

Cape Cod Rail Trail

Kinetic thinkers do their best work when they’re moving. Sitting behind a desk or in a meeting is death to a kinetic thinker. Ever see someone get up and start pacing? That’s a kinetic thinker at work.

If I’m stuck sometimes all I need is a short walk or a stint in the garden pulling weeds to get the ideas spinning again.

But lately I’ve been been frozen, struggling as an artist to figure out exactly how to respond to current events that are as disturbing and confusing to me as they are to many others.

At a trip to my local hardware store where another artist works (hey, you gotta pay the rent) we both bemoaned that we were in a slump. It’s part of the process, we told ourselves. It is. But then part of the process is breaking out of a slump, too.

And then I remembered June 11, 2002.

I was sitting in my boss’s office at a software company that was one of the most toxic places I’ve ever worked. (I needed the money.) This guy had made my life an absolute misery for a bunch of years. Harvard educated, his prejudicial reasoning seemed to be if you didn’t attend an Ivy League school you were nothing. (He actually had a very small mind, and wasn’t very creative. I think he knew it and he knew I knew it.) That day he was gleefully giving me the axe. He was an effing jerk right to the end.

Not really listening to his blah blah blah, I kept looking over his shoulder out the window and thinking, What a beautiful day for a bike ride.

And go for a ride that day I did, making some of best decisions of my life starting with getting the hell out of the corporate world.

Maybe it was time to saddle up again. Head to the Cape. Do the rail trail.

Cape Cod Rail Trail

My “good” bike was still configured for the trainer for the winter. So I broke out the Peugeot, a ten-speed I bought about forty years ago, long before there were such things as triple cranks, clusters of eight gears, and graphite frames. I’ve kept it rolling all those years. When I bring it in to the bike shop for a tune up, the mechanics jockey to take it out for a spin. Perfect for old Cape Cod.

Because, you see, the Cape is not a place; it’s a state of mind. And a forty-year-old bike is the perfect conduit to channel the vortex there.

Circa 1980 Peugeot bicycle parked on the Cape Cod Rail Trail

The day was one of those spring days we get in New England, before the typical cold and rain of spring was predicted to return for the rest of the week. Still not tourist season, I pretty much had the trail to myself.

Maybe it’s because I was raised in the Midwest, but every time I roll out of the parking lot onto the CCRT, I’m aware how lucky I am to live in a place where people come from all over the world to see and experience what is essentially my backyard.

Along the Cape Cod Rail Trail

And with the hum of the tires and the whir of the chain, I immediately could hear that little voice in my brain, still drowsy from a long sleep.

Gawd, John, what’s your problem? What have I told you? Just start with the basics: What’s your language?

Answer: mixed media.

What’s your lexicon?

Pictures and text. Primarily.

Okay. What else?

I’m a little quirky.

Yes. Yes, you are. Consider it a strength, and not a social defect.

And I’ve got a bite…

That you do…

I’m like a dog that’s barking but also wagging its tail. You don’t know if it’s friendly or not.

Ok, good.

Like a junkyard dog…

Don’t overdo it. You got your sweet side, too. What else?

I’m funny. At least I think I am. I mean, some people think I am.

And?

Those are the people I care about. People like me. People who are a little…

A little what?

Quirky. And I tend to hold back because I don’t want to offend. Because I can slay a person if I want to.

Yeah, well…how’s that worked out for you? You always end up offending someone.

So I might as well just go for it…?

Yeah, nothing to lose, everything to gain.

Iconic Cape Cod: lobster traps stacked in the woods and shingles and a picket fence

So, what do you want to do?

Me?

There’s no one else here.

Seen on the Cape Cod Rail Trail

You know, I get really tired of having to be an activist to be an artist. It’s wearing. What I really want to do is keep working on what I started last year: introducing painting and drawing into my work.

Nothing wrong with that. It’s a good idea.

But…

But?

I’m wired to be an activist.

A conundrum, indeed.

A man in a expensive suit has never been on my side.

Well put.

I think my new studio assistant and I have to put our heads together. Maybe we can come up with something.

This is Joyce, my new studio assistant. She was kicked out of Yale, RISD, and CalArts. She once told Larry Gagosian to go fuck himself.

I can’t wait to see what you two come up with.

Play.

When you can’t think of anything else, just play. It will come. You just have to be confident in your talents and your subconscious.