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A very remarkable woman gave me this drawing and with it,
she also gave me a story about a man who lived next door to her and her husband
sometime ago in Berkeley. This man
was extremely private, but very friendly.
After a few run-ins with her neighbor, she learned that he was an
artist. Having been in his house
only once, she recalled her amazement at the stacks and stacks of magazines and
books that decorated his living space.
After he passed away, she and a few of her friends found a number of his
drawings in the dumpster outside of his house. She took the one posted here.
Becoming more and more well known, this Bay Area artist,
Edward Hagedorn (1902-1982), is described by a colleague as “a walking question
mark with no use for success.”
Early on in his career, he stopped exhibiting publicly due to shyness;
however, he remained dedicated to making his work. Though he is considered an Expressionist artist, his work
crossed over a variety of visual languages. You can read more about Hagedorn here: http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/170
The lady who gave me this drawing saw it as a fitting
present for me as I am about to start my first semester as a graduate student
at the San Francisco Art Institute, which was named the California School of
Fine Arts in 1923 when Hagedorn attended.
I wanted to write this post because I find Hagedorn’s story
very inspiring. I have learned to
let go of the idea of success in its most conventional sense and rediscover
what it means to me. I have had to
push out other people’s opinions of where I should go to school, what I should
take pictures of, what I should really be pursuing and where I should work, so
that I am able to make the room to hear the beating of my own heart, the pace
of my own breath and the voice of my own thoughts.
Ultimately, I know what success is for me and I will, by any
means, stick to my guns and go for it.
While this confidence may come natural to some, it took me a very long
time to develop it. Many times, I
have tried to stray away from art in pursuit of a more “real” job and I always
end up coming back home to the thing that makes my stomach turn with excitement
and wonder. So here I have a story
of a man who turned his back on outside expectations in pursuit of his
own. I can’t spend time worrying
so much about how I will make money, if my art is sellable, if it is any good,
if it will change the world. All I
know is now, and at this time, I have the drive, the ideas, the passion, and
the rest, it will all come later.
Right now I am working in my bedroom, with all my supplies laid out
before me and I am free to create my life and say anything I want.
I can tell you, success tastes wonderful…
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