Thoughts on the Yellow Chair…the Desert Sojourn of Vincent van Gogh
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How does one expound on a such an epic undertaking as writing a novel? Is it a labor of love or a flurry of ideas clinging to a roller coaster without brakes? The enduring process demands a Zen-like focus to wade through the clutter in order to find those illusive pinpricks of genius; the golden threads that weave the story together. And these brilliant flashes of insight may be gleamed from the most humble beginnings. Like an abstract painting, a novel’s path is never straight and clear when the creative engine churns in the infinite coils of imagination and mystery.
The Yellow Chair emerged in 2007 as a germ of an idea. I did not entertain how the novel would unfold when I began page one. I had no game plan other than the two protagonists engaged in a rather peculiar set of circumstances in a territory I was familiar with. After the initial meeting of the ‘odd couple’, it didn’t take long for the story to bloom. Character development and nurturing the robust story-line required a lot of contemplation since the two travelers hail from different time periods with customs and language foreign to each other. One must be part shape-shifter to visualize the world through the eyes of another. In this case, those eyes belong to the legendary Vincent van Gogh.
Like millions of others, I have been a fan of Vincent’s art for as long as I can remember. Soon after his death he was cast as the poster child for the ‘starving artist’… the mad hatter who slashed his own ear in a flash of delirium. But as I embarked on this eye-opening journey, I found a different character than what the media hyperbolized. Vincent was a compassionate soul who loved life and sought to portray that in his art. He devoured classic literature and reams of poetry. He loved music and theater but most importantly, family and companionship were at the top of the list.
As a child Vincent was tagged as a rogue individual, an non-conformist who shunned authority in all forms. He was referred to (even in his own home) as “een ourige”; a strange boy. As a result he found himself society’s outcast so he took to the heath, exploring nature with a fever that would one day consume him. He would spend many hours studying life by Grote Beek, a sandy creek near his home in Nuenen. Vincent collected insect specimens, bird nests, whatever sparked his interest. He even knew the Latin names of all specimens. This profound connection to nature was later transferred into a revolutionary style of painting.
The legendary Dutchman was a fervid reader who devoured books. He spoke four languages and could hold his own with complex subjects geared to the most astute intellectual. Vincent literally wore his brother Theo to exhaustion when they argued over some facet of art. To state his case, Vincent would pen letter after letter, as many as six in one day. Out of the seven hundred surviving correspondences, almost all include sketches, side-notes and quotes from classic manifestos that fortified his opinion. Vincent’s defense of earth tone paint and early disdain for Impressionists work sparked the most venomous correspondence between the two brothers. Sibling rivalry at its highest level . But tragically, the debilitating seizures from temporal epilepsy exacted a heavy toll. As the musician Elton John wrote, “The candle burned out long before the legend ever did.”
I spent many an hour thinking about how to bring Vincent van Gogh into the present time frame and make the transition work. How would he navigate in modern times? What would be his reactions to the zeitgeist of the twenty-first century in the remote canyon country of the American Southwest? Many questions only led to other, more complex questions. In order to weave these disparate synapses in a harmonious sequence it required every ounce of visualization I could muster. Intuition charged at peak performance level. After an extended period of proofing and editing, the pieces of the story fell into place. At that point it was difficult to leave the keyboard. Ideas came in droves as the plot thickened. The characters evolved into distinct individuals that found themselves immersed in a most unusual situation but they made the best of it. Their interactions and individual personalities became something I could taste and feel in the first person.
When I started this project I knew little about the mechanics of writing a novel. That skill required a heavy learning curve and thinking beyond the scope of a story teller or the average reader. One must look at every detail like a composer working on the score of a symphony. We may secretly entertain the notion of gracious accolades but that is not the reason one sits at the keyboard for over a decade.
It was my ambition to show the world a different side of Vincent. To strip the varnish and face the unprimed canvas. I wanted to depict Vincent as someone who moves through day to day activities like the rest of us but with the eyes and mind of an explorer of a new land. Yet Vincent van Gogh and his companion Izzy were far from normal. The Dutchman’s heartfelt insights and spontaneous response to life’s trials and tribulations are the products of this writer’s fertile imagination . Yet I truly feel that I am keeping the spirit of Vincent Willem van Gogh alive in a most peculiar fashion. It has been a fascinating, sometimes agonizing, journey. But I would do it over again without hesitation.