Nobody ever got a graduate degree in English in order to become a professional paper grader—not unless they were INSANE—but that’s what happens (at best, sadly) to most MAs/PhDs once they’re spit out the far end of the sausage grinder known as graduate schoool.
But, you know, once upon a time you were going to grad school to create things—texts and/or artifacts and/or whatever as per the current jargon in vogue these days . . . I sure don’t know—and then one day you look around and go, “Crap! That was a long time ago.”
I’ve always been a film fan—the first two weeks I was at UT in Austin I managed to watch twenty-seven different movies between all the on- and off-campus movie theaters—and even now am most nights glued to the couch watching some newish Neflix offering. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries about artists of various types—musicians, writers, painters, architects—and their various creative processes/problems. Then, just this past Friday afternoon, I looked around and said, “Crap! Why not make something instead of just watching movies about people who make stuff?”
Because, you know, there’s THINKING about doing stuff. And then there’s actually DOING stuff. (A body in motion tends to stay in motion; a body at rest tends to stay glued to the couch.) Who cares if it’s good or bad? You know what . . . making something/anything was more fun than (and a welcome break from) just watching the stories of other people who do stuff. And, no matter what, unless you produce a lot of raw content, you’ll never figure anything out anyway. After all, if you wait to brain out that perfect text and/or artifact and/or whatever, you know what will happen?
NOT. A. DAMN. THING.
Hence, my past Friday afternoon/evening: a few blank walls, an empty canvas, masking tape, and a handful of personal technology with which to document it.
All of which leads, of course, to the real question: What have you made today?
Really. Really?
Get on it, bub,
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Mark Roy Long 