Hi friend!
I had other content lined up to share with you this week, but sometimes you just have to let life steer the ship, am I right?
This week, I’m taking time to honor the great David Lynch. His work has meant so much to so many of us, and I’ve spent the last week reflecting on how profoundly his artistry has shaped my own view of storytelling, creativity, and life. We have truly lost a legend.
Lynch had this incredible way of exploring the darkest parts of the human experience without losing his light. He wasn’t glorifying pain or chaos, he was revealing it, confronting it, and reminding us not to look away. And yet, he lived as an artist who believed deeply in joy, vitality, and connection. He knew that in order to be a prolific artist, you need a level of stability and inner peace.
In the podcast above, I’m sharing some personal reflections on Lynch's philosophy, his impact, and my own experiences with his work, starting with the first time I watched Blue Velvet as a theater kid in Wilmington, North Carolina, where it was filmed.
What I don’t discuss in the podcast is that this November, I was given the enormous honor of displaying a piece of work in a group exhibition in Paris that featured some of his photography. The curating organization, Art Icon, reached out to me about a group show titled “Corporeality,” and I knew this was something special.
Though I made the decision not to travel to Paris to attend the exhibition myself, the photos and videos that surfaced from the event were breathtaking. Easily the greatest honor of my art career thus far. You can see the photos from the event and learn more about Art Icon here.
So knowing that my art had been selected to be shown in the same exhibition as his (and knowing that we share some strong astrological placements), I wanted to create something this week in his honor. I wanted to allow his process and his art to influence me directly and see what came up.
I started with the concept of a distorted nude, the title of Lynch’s photograph that was shown in the exhibition. I set up my tripod in the small apartment I am renting for the month, and placed some sheer black fabric on the ground in front of a black screen. I pulled the fabric over my face and contorted my body in various positions, pulling the fabric taught in all directions, creating tension, as if the darkness in my body was pushing out from the inside, trying to escape my skin. After collecting a few different photos from varying angles, the editing process began.
This edit was a hell of a journey. So many moments of pulling back… “this is too weird…” So many moments of fear of what people would think. So many moments of pushing through, hearing David’s voice in my head, and reminding myself to just honor the idea. Show up. Just keep fishing and see if you catch something.
So I kept at it…. half back, half front, half beauty, half beast. Life is not black and white. It is many deep and subtle shades of gray, and I allowed myself to swim in those tones until the vision and the feeling were one.
I’ve certainly been an agent of chaos in my own life many times, feeling an insatiable desire to burn every bridge and force a radical refresh. That chaos demon still lives inside me. She tells me to make reckless decisions and not look back. She tells me that the damage I’ve caused is too great to repair anyway, and I should just start over somewhere else, as someone else. She wants life to move fast and be exciting and doesn’t have patience for the slow, steady effort of building a life she doesn’t want to escape from. She is born out of deep shame and self-loathing.
I understand her. And I no longer let her drive. I can understand chaos, but I don’t have to live it out. I want to be an artist, and to be an artist requires stability, consistency, practice, and dedication. It requires that I express the chaos and self-sabotage inside me through my work, rather than through my life. The saying is you must suffer for your art…. but as David Lynch would say…
“You don’t have to suffer to show suffering. You don’t have to be filled with turmoil to show turmoil. Have it in the story.”
I’ve decided it’s not my job to decide if my work is successful or not. It’s my job to honor the idea, to keep working until both the idea and I can let out a deep sigh in unison… “ok. We did it.” Is it too weird? Maybe. Is it too grotesque? Maybe. Is the nudity too crude? For some, sure. None of that matters when I feel the sense of integrity and satisfaction within myself that I honored the idea that chose me. It could have chosen anyone… but it chose me. And I did my part.
So just keep creating, friend. Honor the legacy of David Lynch and just keep painting (or photographing or dancing or whatever it is you do) until you catch the big fish.
“Don’t fight the darkness. Don’t even worry about the darkness. Turn on the light and the darkness goes. Turn up that light of pure consciousness: Negativity goes.”
― David Lynch
What are some ways you’ve explored darkness, chaos or conflict through your art? Did it bring more of those things into your life or did it help to alleviate them? I’d love to hear from you.
In love and inspiration,
Sarah
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