illustration by Tom Magee
The ego of the writer flies upwards. It halts midair and hovers, then screeches and brays a wild tune. What a view! But then it plummets to earth, beak an arrowhead, wings pasted to body by the force of rushing air. They won’t open! The paralyzed ego watches the sidewalk get closer and closer. Splat.
These ups and downs happen frequently, in a vertiginous rhythm. The highs are wonderful but short-lived. It feels great to write an apt turn of phrase, to pull off an extended metaphor, to be complimented by a reader. The lows are long and painful, but necessary in the face of what’s required: personal integrity, a refusal to hide behind jargon, finding something of substance to say.
To keep writing, I often tell this heap of bedraggled feathers where to go. I swat it away with the back of my hand. Scram, ego! I have a job to do! I learned this tennis-like move from writing about art over the past 13 years, for this very magazine, Galleries West.
“Writers don’t make magazines. Magazines make writers.” This is a popular nugget of publishing biz wisdom, and I get it.
Writers like to think it’s our voice that matters. We wish it was singular. But our voices are formed by the looming of deadlines, by critical editors, by having actual readers (yikes!), and by the fearsome challenge of getting one’s overfull mind to organize itself on the page.
I’m grateful for this chance to thank Tom Tait, Galleries West publisher, for giving me and other contributors a blank canvas. Not many writers are granted this freedom. I’m already kicking myself for taking that for granted. Why didn’t I do more with it?
“Writers don’t make magazines. Magazines make writers.” This is a popular nugget of publishing biz wisdom, and I get it.
Tom’s determination to keep the magazine open was made even more dogged by the fact that in Canada, there aren’t many art magazines left. I’m impressed by how long he held on, for all of us: writers, artists, readers.
I’d like to thank former editor Portia Priegert, too, for her gentle but firm approach. In my early attempts at art reviews, Portia guided my writing toward clarity. By the time I found the confidence to pen longer, personal essays, she asked me to re-phrase, to consider a change of tone, to polish and hone. The stakes felt higher, so the work had to be better. Any sense of ‘better,’ I owe to her. Hands down, she’s the best editor I’ve ever worked with.
A thank you is also owed to current editor Shelley Boettcher. Shelley once asked me to cut 850 words from a monstrously unwieldy 4,000-word piece. I was crestfallen. I didn’t know how to sacrifice my words, my little children! But when I did, I saw she was right. Good writers keep language efficient. I’m more able to inflict quick, painless deaths now.
Mark Twain on concise writing: “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
Truthfully, I don’t know how to function as a homeless — so to speak — writer. At the news of the magazine’s closing, my ego’s flight pattern went erratic.
But I hope to take what I learned at Galleries West and put it to use:
- Description of artwork = interpretation.
- One adjective can pack more punch than two.
- Don’t be afraid to sound weird. You are weird, after all.
And, most importantly: art writing should share in the dynamism and potency of the objects that compel it. Art is deserving of all your attempts to reach that bar. ■