Since Winter is the historical time of "looking within" for the Indo-Aryan folk, I've decided today to try my hand at a very brief autobiography. I will do this four more times in the coming days, and hopefully arrive at some new perspectives on "things." This is by definition an indulgent project, so, ahem, pardon me while I try to uncarefully define myself in automatic terms:
I.
When I left my hometown in rural-industrial middle Georgia and went off to college, I was fairly blown away by being on my own. It was weird. I felt like an eyeball removed from its socket, wandering the streets of a strange new world. One of the things I stumbled upon and came to love was the student-run movie theater on campus. They showed lots of art and cult films and, quite often, between classes, I'd go watch French New Wave or noir films in the middle of the day. It was a lovely time in a lovely little theater.
One of those days, I decided: This is it. This is what I want to do with my life. I want to make films. I then proceeded to put all things unrelated to film and art out of my mind. I made Super 8mm films and screened them at the monthly local filmmaker's screenings. I kept a film journal wherein I recorded my impressions and ideas. And I got a job at a library where basically I got paid to watch movies and archived t.v. shows, listen to records, and read art books. It was a time of excitement. I declared my major: Television and Film Production. I became a sponge for new visual experiences...sort of like the robot in Short Circuit. I think his name was "Johnny Five."
As time went on, the more I learned about myself. And the more I learned, the more I realized that I was a "fringe" or experimental artist. What I mean is that I found that I prized less and less the more "obvious" approaches to film, music, and other forms of art. I hated the fact that PR firms, the moneychangers, personality games, and a general urge to conform made it hard for people to do real art in America. All my favorite, esteemed artists flew well below the popular radar. Many had already died in obscurity. It was then that it dawned on me that I had, in essence, taken a lifelong vow of poverty. I was around twenty-one when this occured. It was sort of a revelation. Or maybe it was an anti-revelation.
It became clear to me that I needed to find something bigger to explore than my career or existence as an artist. When I graduated from college, I went on the road. I picked up a dog named Stella along the way. I traveled off and on for roughly three years, then I settled back in Athens and worked odd jobs. I ended up doing "light carpentry," horticulture and landscaping. I kept journals, took photographs, and made films that whole time. (I have stacks of artwork from that personal epoch that have never seen light of day.)
Life dealt some hard blows. After a while (and some stupidly repetitive behaviors) I felt that my life was becoming too predictable again, so I went to study psychology at a Buddhist university in Colorado. Here I met my future wife, Janelle. The parallels between cinema, art, and psychology were many. I enjoyed this fact and had many pints with a guy named Paul, and we talked about this kind of thing a lot.
Janelle & I moved back to Athens, land of the lovely theater, and once we even sat in that same theater and watched Yoda go insane on a Sith Lord. We laughed. It was good. I got a job working on a psychiatric unit. Later on, we had our daughter, Eleanor. My man Paul became her godfather. When I eventually got downsized out of a job, I was glad. I was burning out - not on people, but on institutions. Anyway, it meant more time I got to spend with my favorite people. If I had any spare time outside of parenting, I used it to make films, murals, short stories, poems, and beer (pictured above). Janelle and I made a mobile for our daughter. One day, I woke up and it was today. I sat down to my laptop while Eleanor napped and...well...here we are.
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