It has been too long. I wanted this entry to tell you that I have scans of all my writing about Vincent in my hands, that the truly creative work has begun. Unfortunately, my patience has been tested these past two months in the scanning of hundreds of documents, the resizing and cropping, the two printing companies that said they would not print my project, and the three rounds of reformatting as each company has their way of doing things.  A week ago I thought I would have to rescan every document;  I felt a kind of mental claustrophobia that I can’t remember ever feeling before. I finally settled on ordering about half my scans, and fixing the images and re-ordering as necessary.

I so desperately want to get to the meat of things, but the grunt work must come first. Only today I remembered Vincent’s frustration during the early years of his career as an artist, when he was mostly teaching himself (with a few mentors here and there) how to draw and paint… It continues to be so very remarkable to me how our thoughts mirror each other from over a century away.

But then I loathe myself so much for not being able to do what I’d like, and at such moments one feels as though one is bound hand and foot, lying in a deep, dark pit, powerless to do anything. Now it’s over, inasmuch as I got up last night and pottered around a bit, putting one thing and another in order… (26 January 1882 to Theo)

Yes. These are the highs and lows of creativity — confidence and passion sometimes drives you to utter despair when things won’t work. I’ve begun to recognize my own phases now, which helps even them out. But now, I’d like to share a little something from the book with you.

Three pieces of paper reappeared in my life after an over two-year state of tucked-away-ness in a plastic bag with all the museum maps, tickets, and other paraphernalia I collected in YellowEurope.

But these words were written before that trip: the night before I reached Chicago, the day I left New York City for Vincent. New York had taught me more than I ever imagined, but to start my own theatre company, to produce my own work, I knew it was too rich for my meager wages. I left many things I adored behind, including my financial independence, to come to Chicago, live with my parents for a year and make Vincent’s Yellow happen. That is what I mean when I write to Vincent that I left New York City for him.

I hadn’t read these words of transition since I wrote them. When I read them aloud a few weeks ago, I began to cry. Not because of the memories – I hadn’t actually read the letter yet! I cried because even then I did not realize I was in Holland.

It was Holland, Ohio, yes — not Amsterdam where I would arrive five weeks later — but Vincent was already with me. Could Holland be a state of mind? I’ll be meditating on that. Here’s taste number two of my book.

My goal is to have put the first chapter together by the end of the year. My plan is to start publishing the book online for free for a limited time, if possible, while I’m pursuing book publishers. I’m toying with the idea of transforming this website into the book itself. If online, the book will be released in segments, in the style of Dickens. If you are reading this now, I hope you will also enjoy reading the book for free within the next year!

~~~~~~~VAN GOGH POPCORN~~~~~~~

If you haven’t heard about the new biography Van Gogh: The Life, you’ve probably been living under a rock. It introduces a new theory that Vincent did not shoot himself at all, but that some mischievous boys in Auvers shot him accidentally, and that Vincent (already feeling a burden on his brother with a new family) took responsibility for the actions instead of ruining one or more of those young mens’ lives by pointing a finger.

This theory sounds quite possible to me (without having read the book yet), the motivations fit more with Vincent’s personality… However, it seems to me that the fact remains that we will never have any conclusive evidence. Once I read through the theory, perhaps I will find it to be most likely.

The truth is… we’ll never know for certain. The gun was never found. But I certainly enjoy this alternative ending, and the questioning of his death.

Perhaps this new theory will mean Van Gogh will no longer be so defined by his suicide?

One can hope.

~~~~~~UPDATE 11/16/11~~~~~~

Scans of my journal entries about Vincent are in my hands!

The time to edit has begun.

251 pages of my writing…

Creativity engine — GO!

Thanks to vangoghmuseum.nl

Johanna van Gogh-Bonger

Today I’d like to take a moment to honor one of the most important and most forgotten figures in Vincent’s work and life: Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Lovely, lovely Jo.

Jo married Theo van Gogh, Vincent’s brother, on May 2nd, 1889. Since Vincent died July 29th, 1890, Jo only met Vincent on a few occasions, all within the last three months of his life. She wrote him a handful of letters that speak for themselves. Here are her first words to him:

Dearest brother,                                                           8 May 1889

It’s high time that your new little sister came to chat with you and didn’t always just let Theo convey her regards. When we weren’t married yet I always thought: Well, I don’t really dare to write to Vincent about everything yet, but now we really have become brother and sister, and I would so much like you to know me a little and, if possible, love me a little.

For my part — it’s been the case for a long time — I’ve heard so much about you, both from Wil and from Theo — and here in the house there are masses of things that are reminders of you, when I find a nice little jug or a vase or something, then it’s always: Vincent bought that or V. liked that so much — scarcely a day passes when we don’t speak of you. [full letter]

Thanks to vangoghletters.org

Now, not only did this woman have a very sweet soul, but she also gave birth to Vincent Willem van Gogh (what a name to carry…), Theo’s son, on the 31st of January 1890. Vincent Willem ended up with all the paintings Jo had kept by her death in 1925, and in 1960 the Vincent van Gogh Foundation was founded based on their enormous family treasure; it still houses the largest collection of Vincent van Gogh’s work – “some 200 paintings, 500 drawings and 700 letters, as well as the artist’s own collection of Japanese prints” as they put it. But Jo is much more than the mother of Vincent’s nephew and heir. (Although, this photo of Vincent Willem in 1952 is positively delightful)

Thanks to vangoghletters.org

Theo inherited all of Vincent’s work upon his death (this was an unanimous family decision given that Theo had supported Vincent for almost the entirety of his ten-year artistic career), and then when Theo died six months later, Jo inherited everything.

I often consider Jo at that moment, who had been married for only a year and a half, given birth to a son and named him after her brother-in-law, her husband’s closest friend, and then watched both her husband and his brother die in the year following her son’s birth. Jo was 29 years old, quite alone, left with a one year old baby, hundreds of paintings and drawings and letters. What does Jo do?

In November 1891, ten months after her husband’s death, she wrote in her diary:

Besides the child he [Theo] has bequeathed me another task – Vincent’s work – to get it seen and appreciated as much as possible; keeping all the treasures that Theo and Vincent had collected intact for the child – that, too, is my work.

Within the next few months, she resolved to organize all of the letters Theo had kept of Vincent’s, to edit, translate, and publish them. This task, creating the first complete publication of the letters between Theo and Vincent, would take her twenty-two years. That’s over twice as long as Vincent spent painting.

Now while there were certain passages suppressed and certain liberties taken to protect some individuals (all of which was quite normal for the publication of letters at the time), no one can doubt the enormity of her undertaking… Most of the letters had no date and her notes reveal she had a very difficult time finding the correct order (and she was still wrong on various points). It is additionally astounding that she financed the publication herself. It would be seven years before she recouped the cost, let alone made a profit from her publication. And while she was organizing, editing and translating, she also endlessly promoted Vincent’s work through exhibitions and sales. What would have happened if it weren’t for Jo? I believe that she, more than anyone other single figure, secured Vincent’s legacy. Theo kept Vincent alive, Jo kept him remembered.

However, what always strikes me deep in my heart is what she did upon completing this incredible project. When Theo died in 1891, he had been buried in Utrecht, in the Netherlands, in his homeland. In 1914, Jo had Theo’s remains moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, where he could rest forever at Vincent’s side.

Thanks to wikipedia.org

And in their death they were not divided. (2 Samuel 1:23)

That was your motto for the publication of all the letters, Jo.

On behalf of so many, I would like to thank you. Thank you for your love, your dedication, your time, your energy… Thank you, Jo, for saving him. I really believe you did.

But the commodification, the misinterpretation, the drama, the mythology of Van Gogh is all important, and I have eventually come to embrace it. For Vincent van Gogh created one enormous thing without a drop of intention, and that is his Myth. Van Gogh is perhaps a name with as many resonances as Ghandi, probably less than Hitler, but certainly more than FDR or Genghis Khan (and I refer to the resonances with the general population… I finally met someone who did not know who Vincent van Gogh was this past week and it about knocked my socks off). What Vincent did is in no way comparable to what these other men did, but his actions, his life, his influence has reached far and wide like a pebble’s ripple in a pool. Except that those ripples gained a force of their own, and continue to roar across cultural oceans.

What I love to look at now are the many iterations, the many re-fashionings and re-imaginings of Vincent/Van Go, and smile at the infinitely deep well of inspiration this man has become. He has become much greater than he ever could have imagined – he is sometimes so immense I wonder if I will ever know him all. As I once wrote in my journal: His life was the birth of a universe in an egg shell. I still believe that whole heartedly.

From Halloween costumes (this one is particularly well done)

Thanks to wtfcostumes.com

to NASA comparing the illumination of interstellar dust around this star to one of his paintings

Thanks to hubblesite.org

to hotel suites modeled after his paintings

Thanks to design.nl

to credit cards

Thanks to tagesanzeiger.ch

to shoes with quotes from his letters on them,

and cartoons,

Thanks to neatorama.com and bizzaro.com

and dolls with removable ears

Thanks to philosophersguild.com

or removable heads

Thanks to baronbob.com

to books (an Amazon search reveals almost 2,000) and movies (Amazon shows 22 results for movies and television, but I’m sure there are more out there that one cannot buy) and short films ranging from the more realist Vincent’s Final Moments to the surrealist Vincent and Absinthe

to the iPhone application Yours, Vincent which puts his letters and sketches at your fingertips

Thanks to iphonespies.com

to University investigations into which star Vincent painted in The White House at Night, 1890

Thanks to hermitagemuseum.org

(it was Venus, and it was precisely in that spot the night he painted it, by the way)

to songs, both the lesser known and the famous –

It becomes irrefutable that Vincent is a universe, a mountain worth climbing and full of ever-branching caverns. I am lucky enough to consider myself an explorer of all things that trace their root to him. The portrayals of this man and his work in all its iterations are not necessarily historically accurate, but they reflect what Vincent van Gogh truly means to those that reflect him back at the world and inevitably spread his words, his paintings, his life to those that did not know him at all.

In this way, Vincent van Gogh is still very much alive to me. He is an idea, a spirit that is still developing, still changing, still reaching out…