Sean Äaberg

THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 62

Added 2024-08-27 23:12:18 +0000 UTC

When I was in high school we were given an employment test. All the sophomores were supposed to take it. I was excited to find out what course I should be on, even if I had decided my path previously. These tests should have been administered in the second grade. How early is the die actually cast? Mr. Lyons, my useless guidance counselor, who really looked like a useless guidance counselor gave me the results & it said I should be a… magician. He shrugged, had nothing to add. I really wanted the test to confirm my choice in being an artist or at least a writer, which has been my secondary role since I was eleven or so. A magician wasn’t even on my list! It just seemed corny to me. I didn’t understand. This was mostly because I didn’t think about what my art meant as a communications medium. I mostly thought about it as a means to communicate me, what I had to say, if I thought about it at all. Decades later, as I am no longer an aspiring artist. I’ve crossed over the line, I just am an artist, I can see how being a magician is actually very similar to what I do. A magician is a practitioner of supernatural or illusory magic. I do both, my art involves both the world of illusion & the supernatural. I realized when we were living in Eugene that each piece of art that I created was a spell just by the amount that I concentrated on the work & that it then usually went on to live in other people’s heads. People started to appear who looked like the characters from my drawings. I could feel my art changing reality. It was easier to see this influence when I was living in the tiny neighborhood of Punk or Oakland or Eugene or Rockers, it’s harder to see when my focus has been on the whole world.