Destroying My Art
In 1996, I made an experimental movie using two VCRs, a trip to a nearby park to film my friend hanging off bridges, and a Kate Bush song. When I met my future partner in 2003, I showed it to him. His reaction was to laugh in a way that I thought was derisive. In my utter embarrassment, I threw the VHS tape in the trash. That’s where my sense of security as an artist was at that time.
I went on to build up my confidence, thanks in part to my partner, who turned out to be incredibly encouraging, and a generous community of artistic collaborators over the years. But I reached another crisis point.
At some point between 2019 and 2021, I took about five pounds of paper that I started collecting and carrying with me since about 1992, and stuffed it down the recycling chute of my building. It included my creative and academic writing from every year onwards, not necessarily every single assignment, but many. My heart was racing as I did it. I felt a surge of panic as I ran away from the chute. In retrospect, I was enacting the part of a serial killer on my own artistic life, but in that moment, on some level, I sensed it.
In 2021 or 2022, I was living with my mother who was dying of cancer at the time. Every day, my mother looked smaller and sadder as the medications she was on couldn’t hold back the cancer’s spread. She was leaving and there was nothing I could do or say to make it stop. I was suffering from mental exhaustion and grief, and I was struggling to maintain a grip on my sanity.
Amidst all the other chaos of the moment, my old work demanded to know why I would abandon it like that. The pieces I had patiently collected and occasionally read through as a reminder of my creative journey, that I had in a state of extreme fright and paranoia thrown away, they cried, begged to return, and screamed at me because I didn’t know how to let them back in. I cried and screamed too. This conversation became part of a year-long journey of unending stress and sadness and long string of nightmares that I found myself powerless to control. I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going or how I was going to survive.
After my mother’s passing, we unearthed a massive archive of photos and videos she had taken over the years. I noticed a videotape in there that seemed like it might be another copy of the very first video I had made, the one I had thrown in the trash and long mourned. I tossed it in a box, pretending I didn’t care about it. Again. I’m not sure if the box survived or was thrown away.
I begged my partner to destroy our music, a cherished album we made together and had yet to release. I destroyed my solo artist profiles on every platform I could find. I deleted important lessons I had recorded that I used for vocal warmups. Soon, all of my video work too was in danger. I deleted everything I had made from Vimeo and YouTube, put them back, took them down again, tried to delete everything. I think I successfully deleted one other video that was a collaboration with three other people, a piece I loved and was incredibly proud of — as were the rest of the team on it. I don’t remember or understand why I thought I needed to destroy it. I wish I did. I eventually put most of what I had created back online. It still feels a little strange to see them back online, but without the views and comments they had collected over the years.
I hope a drive, hard or thumb, turns up with the video I destroyed one day. I hope the box turns up one day. I think I have dreams about that moment. They’re slowly replacing the nightmares of loss I keep reliving. I have no hope left about my writing coming back to me in its original form. So instead, I dream about my writing, and where it might be today. At odd moments day or night, I grieve for all that I lost.
I’ve had an incredibly hard time focusing for several years now. I continued to publish my music, delete it, write new blog posts and delete them, to create new websites, icons, brands, and descriptions for my freelance practice and delete them. Finally, I started writing a book to make up for everything I lost, dedicated to my mother. I have written many new pages for it and deleted them. But the book proceeds, regardless. I expect to finish it by summer or fall. I have finally started putting my other music and video work back online and not feeling the immediate urge to destroy it.
The urge to destroy is a cycle I needed help to understand so that I could begin to end it. I remember that I love my work now. I still feel guilt and shame, and sometimes I feel completely addicted to it — during that period of extreme instability, I started to think of these feelings as valued ways to access my cherished memories of beings, places, and objects that are no longer around. But is guilt and shame really such an important way to relive memories? No. The answer is a resounding NO.
I’ve gone back and forth between embracing and denying my own creativity again and again through the years. I know it’s not all bad — there can be creative rebirth in destruction and loss. But as I reinvent myself in this moment, I set this intention: I will never destroy my own artistic body of work again. I will learn to love myself once more.
I guess the final lesson I’ve taken away from all of this is, love yourself. Let the world love you. Set yourself free to love the world back. We don’t have a lot of time here, but forming a mutual appreciation society helps you make the most of it, and hopefully, to leave the world a better place than how you found it.
