If you’re lonely, this one’s for you. Laing wrote that on the first page as you opened the book cover as if it means to jump into one big forum — that everyone will feel the same as you, for reading her books — and to devote yourself to all of the words you will face onto the following pages. It will make you relevant and comfortable reading her journey. Reading Laing’s feels like self-indulgence, like having a nice walk in the afternoon to recover from heavy chests and to get fresh air. Somehow, the words seem written nicely and clearly to me, as for myself I can get pretty hard putting feelings into words because the words are scattered all over the place inside my head.
I used to think the terms ‘outsider’ or ‘lonely people’ is pretentious. It’s giving very much emo-core two thousand and twelve. Saying that ‘I don’t fit in’ or ‘I’m very much a sad person’ is a weird self-explanations. So I used to be ashamed of having those feeling, I feel the urge to fill the vacant space by searching for connections with other people, buying stuff I don’t need, and meeting strangers that later I would despise. I don’t like that feeling, feeling of isolation and loneliness — when there's so much fun the world can offer. Instead of trying to understand it, I run opposite from it. In the end, nobody can ever understand how melancholic and sadder you get but yourselves.
It’s a lonely city we lived in, isn’t it? it’s more lonely as we cannot have a connection of being alone — some kind of self-approvement — from others. But Laing depicts some wonderful artists and their journey of loneliness by writing some of their works, affected by feeling isolated and outsider to the world.
‘I probably am a lonely one’ said Hopper.
‘A lonely one; not all the same thing as admitting one is lonely. Instead, it suggests that a, that assuming indefinite article, a fact that loneliness by its nature resists. Though it feels entirely isolating, a private burden no one could possibly experience or share, it is, in reality, a communal state, inhabited by many people.‘ said Laing.
It is inhabited by many people. Growing old means you no longer see things as it is, instead you start to see the layers of them. Many adults found loneliness as a cause of working nine-hour a day, not being able to satisfy what the soul needs — contentment and a feeling of security. One feels connected to others because they have similar things to share or embrace. To be consoled and said, ‘I feel it, too.’
‘… I declare myself in my paintings’ and later Hopper said, ‘I don’t paint American scene. I’m trying to paint myself’
As I read the statement that Laing writes about Hopper, I straight up open my browser and found one of his famous paintings. The Nighthawk. And later I found, People In The Sun. I look at it briefly, but I keep coming back at it to zoom in and out. In his painting, people look so collected and quiet. Though there’s no sign of conversation, some of them are relations. But the ‘quietness’ is somehow unbearable. The ambiance is heavy, painted with blue and green and red color, somehow cold and isolated.
Strangely, I found it comforting. The lack of glamourous of New York, like he paints every cul-de-sac on what people live in the big city. The loneliness and restlessness appear and provoke the audience.
‘… I am trying to paint myself.’
Trying to understand oneself, to pour it into artworks turns out it gives significant power to others, the painting turns into a greater feeling for everyone who longs for connection to satisfy their souls.
From Hopper, Warhol, Darger, Wojnarowicz, Basquiat, and even Klaus Nomi. From painting, cam-recorder, scraps of paper, graffitis, dancing, and singing that the artists leave us, a trace of their existence, of loneliness that they slip into artworks. Different races, different cultures, some of them are immigrants, some of them who everyone called ‘the outsiders’, some of them rejects by the society simply because they’re too ‘weird’ and too different. Laing describes it also with the stigma that happens to AIDS patients back then, about ActUp communities who hand in hand voice out to break the stigma.
We are part of the society of this lonely city. We chase the perpetual lights, or later we might find ourselves staring blankly at the high fortress in front of us, fretfully.
For me, reading about Laing’s journey, searching for sources back and forth to the museum, and library, sitting hour by hour listening to the artist's digital record, and reading their works makes it more intimate. It is Laing and her lonely journey, after all. But for me as the reader, I never acknowledge it, I never knew how depth other’s people feel about loneliness. And Laing, giving it all to me, serves me with a lot of information on specific points of the artists’ lives.
