A brief post to be continued later on


I'm working on a longer and more detailed post about a couple of things I've encountered lately - namely, the artist's place amongst a larger group. This is something I've thought about before, but I recently read two things that have brought it back to my mind. Chaim Potok's My name is Asher Lev, which I just finished, looks at this from an artist's perspective, and it's also something that's always present in Philip Roth's novels. I just read a profile of him that reminded me of this, and is the reason I'm writing this. Basically, I find the 2 writers' approach to the subject complementary, and interesting for their difference - in Roth, you get characters (at least Coleman Silk is an example of this, maybe Alexander Portnoy, though his situation is a bit more complex) who are trying to escape the world they were raised in, to choose their personal "I" over the "we" of the group. But in Asher Lev, you have a Hasidic, Orthodox Jew with a great talent for painting & drawing. Pursuing this gift is contradicts the wishes of his father, the community, etc, but he does it anyway. What I found interesting, after reading several Roth novels, is that he never questions his religion, and while he doesn't necessarily try to combine religion and art - the two definitely remain separate spheres in his life - he never sees the two as mutually exclusive. For anyone this can be an ongoing struggle with different complications.

Anyway, it's interesting and there's a lot more to say, but I actually have work to do so I thought I should get this down before I forget about it. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to it soon, but for now, I'll use this Degas painting to illustrate my office, which is much less scenic than the painting.


(As you can see, the inspiration of reading a book about a painter has led to the use of more classic images for the blog. The hard part is finding something relevant - the first painting is by Marc Chagall, of his shtetl in Belarus, painted after he left, called I and the village. The second, called The office. But maybe I'll pick up a book on art history one of these days. It's embarassing how much I don't know.)