We start with a featured presenter, and have a lively in-depth discussion about their work. We then mini-critique any work willing quests and members bring in: a piece of art, music, writing, video, etc by circulating and placing post-it note comments.
Through this process we gain encouragement, clarity, new sources of inspiration, and best of all: a network of creative types who support and encourage each other.
This month's Artlab Features the writing of Steve Fox
Thursday, December 9th, at 7 pm
464 Amherst Street, Buffalo NY
There is plenty of street parking and always room for new faces.
Come enjoy food and drink for both body and brain.
Interview by Tara Sasiadek
Who are you and what do you do?
I am Steven Setters Fox. I am a published writer and photographer; a painter, and a businessman with a bent for engineering, computers and architecture who went to law school to become a better entrepreneur.
I love ideas. I enjoy conversing to convey and understand different perspectives. I look for hope and faith, beauty and grace everywhere-even in enemies and slugs. I strive to befriend people and keep strong friendships. I've learned the most from my elders. So, now that I am elder, I pay special attention to children. I support creating "haven on earth" using our different skills, talents, preferences and perspectives toward mutual values of honesty, curiosity, compassion, generosity, forgiveness, respect and love.
I do my day job consulting on the business and legal aspects of creativity, including ideas, copyrights, trademarks, entertainment, First Amendment, Internet and related litigation. My clients have business in over sixty countries. I was appointed by the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization as an Intellectual Property arbitrator, mediator and Domain Name Judge. I also ran an import-export business with four partners; I founded and ran a rock-climbing, hiking and camping guide school (FoxRocks); I wrote and published a book; and, I pursued a variety of other ventures.
What are you hoping to get out of the critique this month?
I want to know whether the book I self-published is worthy of sending to publishing houses for rejection. I want to know reactions to technique: tone, grammar, voice, verbiage, pacing, detail, plot and sequencing. I want to know if anyone wants to learn more about the protagonist, the story and the outcome; or, if they can't stand the guy.
Telekinesis or X-ray vision?Telekinesis. I could have solved more problems, avoided more conflagrations and created more peacefulness if I could move things. Besides, who needs to see through something if you can move it out of the way!
What has been your strangest source of inspiration in writing?
A non-stop, lunch-time conversation between two women at the next table. They spoke over each other on topics which make trivialities sound crucial. Their volume and animation shepherded into the corral of my mind the question: why are they doing that? It led to this:
Talk
Talk
and electrons flow
Talk
its blood-based, don't ya know
Talk
Is how we show our love:
Love
Is words
Without
Talk
Infinite wisdom or infinite free time?
Free time. Let me learn what I want, how I want. I already get into enough trouble thinking I know it all; imagine if I really did?! Infinite wisdom would lead me to working on every problem. I already have high quality satisfaction with who I have made myself to be; that is wisdom enough. Also, I would not have to isolate myself on a Himalayan peak, freezing, waiting for pilgrims and seekers to arrive with their mundane, self-centered, impractical questions; the beseeching, the insolent, inauthentic self-deprecations, and the jealous glances sent upon icicle daggers harvested from their hair and nose.
Author's note: Also, infinite wisdom makes your forehead all veiny.
Think fast: You have time to grab three things before your house explodes. What do you choose?
Collection of Milton Rogovin photos. Jewelry box with family heirlooms. My flat-file art cabinet, if we postulate that I would have super-strength to carry it.
Author's note: Super strength is 100% included in the hypothetical situation package.
Have you had issues with writer's block? Do you have any tricks for working through it?
*crickets chirruping*
Ultimate chocolate pairing?
Women.
Have any books in particular changed how you think about writing or the writing process?
No. Two talks have. First, on TV, John Lennon speaking outside his Tittenhurst Park front door, to a man who had been living on the grounds to be close to the man who wrote songs which spoke truth to and about the sojourner. John said, I don't write for you or anybody. Not even Yoko. I write for meself. If you find meaning, if it touches you, that's great. But it's not about you. Now, are you hungry?; wanna come in for sum tea?
Second, in person, years before that, at an annual meeting of a newspaper where I was a photographer, a former managing editor delivered the key note address. He speech slipped from his mouth, lectern slipping from his grasp, balance slipping from his body, and wisdom and humor slipping from his self. He said writers write. Publishing, earning a living, awards, even quality matter none for real writers. "Writers write," said Kurt Vonnegut; and so it goes.
If you had unlimited funds and 6 months free of all obligations, what ambitious visionary project would you tackle?
I would travel the Mid-West, from Erie to Omaha to Houston. I'd place ads, set up meetings with research librarians, and collect interviews and ephemera related to my Dad's life as a boy: traveling with his Mom, paternal grandfather and Dad producing dance marathons.
Favorite local art resource?
Albright Knox. I own work by artists I would not have known but for seeing their work as a little kid. From classes to the shop to lectures and movies and openings and brunches, on top of oh-by-the-way the collection, it has inspired me, broken limits, supported all aspects of my self.
What is the last thing in the world you want me to ask you?
Why would I tell everyone that??
Author's note: Damn. They usually fall for this one.
Where can we find more of your work?
My house, my facebook page, my parents house. I have exhibited and sold art, but I find more remuneration selling legal advice. Although, that could change.
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