Spending the past two classes in the letter press workshop has been an incredible and enlightening experience- I really wish we could spend more time here! I now understand and appreciate the attention to detail, the conscientiousness and caution that goes into this craft. It is a far more manual process than I had anticipated, which, in my opinion, makes it a more satisfying art form. Julia and I worked together on a print, and I suggested we use a quote from my favorite author, Joan Didion. It reads: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Although it seemed we were one of the only groups that chose a quote that didn’t directly link to My Name is Red or Don Quixote. Still, I think there’s something universal in this statement. The telling of stories can be equated with the creation of art: an act that is so often necessary, innate even. With the phrase “in order to live,” Didion suggests that storytelling, or writing, and, I would add, art, are a means of parcelling out the world, of absorbing experiences as we go forth. All art forms: writing, painting, printing, etc. become ways to digest lived experience. “In order to live,” to accept the chaos of the world, artists translate life into an accessible visual language. Still, Didion’s use of the term “stories” alludes to fiction, seemingly implying the idea that we strive not to confront the full truth of our experience in these crafts. Art is, then, a coloring of reality, but not necessarily a falsification. I think it’s fascinating to consider writing and visual art in these terms, as a reflexive means of processing the world  and as crafts that can offer both solace and criticism to society.

How do you understand this quote in terms of our class?