Neurosis

It is a frightening thought. I am working diligently on the video, compelling media, assembling clips to the story line, trying to tell a visual story about a bicycle trip. This is not my first cinematic rodeo so I am familiar with the unique challenges of roping the runaway calf. As you know I cut video with one goal in mind, to get it done, document it, try to make it interesting and entertaining. I use no audio. I do it quickly, making edit decisions on the fly. I have a format and a template designed specifically to provide both structure and censure. Under this design I am free to add whatever media I feel might raise an eyebrow or lower a boom. Amazingly I have finished sixty-six of these forty-five minute tributes to energy and motion. They are all connected at the id by our love of the bicycle, exercise, the out-of-doors and the dynamic flow of our life force. But here the plot, like any decent risotto or polenta, thickens.

I had a gal friend once, a talented jeweler who created incredible works of art suitable for accessorizing with any wardrobe. She was constantly experimenting with fusions of varying materials, medias, gems and other elements in order to test the boundaries that constrain art and possibility. One day as we looked over her portfolio, I commented on a somewhat gaudy necklace she had made several years prior. It was beautifully photographed, a black velvet backdrop with a single sparkle emitting from one of the many diamonds. She commented as I admired the work that she could see her neurosis in it. And this caught my attention like a fly in the spiders web.

That incident was several years ago but its message has remained to this day.

The distance between what we do here, the daily download of collected thoughts, fears, dreams, phobias, rhyming couplets of hope and search for meaning, while generalized as writing, is not far from what we do with video. Matter of fact it is the very same thing. It is my telling a story. I can reveal everything or as much as I feel safe, comfortable and satisfied with. At the top of the list of desired results from this labor of love are, in no special order, improvement, introspection, analysis, documentation and experimentation. Much like those guests yesterday who, along with their brilliance and creative energy, left a mess for me to clean up, one must be prepared to face a mixed bag of critical response.

It is with all this in mind, the juxtapositional transfer of cellular energy to the written word or the moving image, that a thought popped up this morning as I distractedly placed my favorite coffee mug into the microwave,

…what if my neurosis is seen in my video?