Writings
To listen to his speech: The Struggle, Parts I and II. He says in his speech that if you're an artist, you and only you and other artists know that you have no other choice but to be an artist. James, in his speech, says—while talking about being an artist—for some unknown reason. You, as an artist, will not settle for anything else; without knowing it, you become driven to speak about your life. When surviving life, "in some terrible way that you cannot describe, you are compelled into dealing with whatever it is that hurt you, and that is not what is important. Everybody's hurt. What bullwhips you, torments you, is that you must find some way of using this to connect you with everyone else alive, and this is all you have to do it with. You must understand that your pain is trivial except insofar as you can use it to connect with other people's pain, and insofar you can do that with your pain, you can be released from it.” As far as I can tell you what it's like to suffer, perhaps I can help you suffer less. He says that artists have an unspoken obligation—to describe what it's like to live. Because no one else can, only artists (this is not limited to visual artists). I resonate with what James says. The experiences that make me or shake me are the things I make art about.