“I shouldn’t be here.”
This sentence haunted me in multiple ways as I arrived at the Portland Airport first thing in the morning on January 3rd. I was embarking on a cross-country trip to visit Pentaculum, a short-term invitational artists retreat in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was my second trip to this residency, the first being in 2020 pre-pandemic, and the world had shifted. I had shifted. And, for a moment, I was unsteady in my resolve to travel.
Thus, “I shouldn’t be here.”
As I traversed airport security, mindful of spacing and social distance, I reassured myself with thoughts that it would be okay, that I needed this outlet, this space for myself, for my growth and personal and artistic development. I was…unsteady.
That morning I also got notification that the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts had been hit with a winter storm and would be without power and that I should avoid coming to campus as there would be neither power or heat, so I scrambled to make a hotel reservation in nearby Knoxville to wait it out and wait for word that the power would be restored before arriving at campus.
“I shouldn’t be here.”
I couldn’t nix that thought from running through my mind, but Nick DeFord, guru of all things Pentaculum and all-around steady person that he is, kept in constant communication and was able to keep my anxiety at bay. I dined in Knoxville and slept great in my downtown accommodations. The next morning, the sun was shining, the roads were clear, and I was on my way.
Pentaculum is a program specifically designed to give artists who hold academic positions or have other employment/family commitments the space to unpack themselves, to work and play with their craft away from the hustle and bustle and distractions of their day-to-day life, and I NEEDED it. I needed it more than I could realize or articulate.
So I arrive at Pentaculum, a little better for the drive through the Smoky Mountains, and I unpack my car and settle into Staff House on campus. I’m the first to arrive, and I walk through the halls of the quiet house I will call home for the next week, looking at the prints and the ceramics and the other art pieces that adorn the shelves and the walls of the house.
Immediately, I am overcome with the sense that I do belong here. That I should be here. And as the other artists and writers begin to arrive, that sense grows and stretches and unfolds itself within me. The chaos of travel is at an end, the welcome chaos of words and stories and words comes to take its place. And so we settle in and get to work.
It’s different being a writer amongst physical artists. I once had a writing teacher who told me that to the outside world being a writer looks like “pure idleness.” And there are moments where I can see what he means. A simple tour of the other studios is an exercise in activity. Strewn across tables are materials, tools, sketch pads full of designs, sheets tacked to bulletin boards diagraming projects, and people. Many people.
But Pentaculum is dedicated to being a safe space to create, so everyone is distanced, everyone is masked, and everyone is conscious of the others, and I feel…welcomed and invited and seen, even as we respect the boundaries and the safety of each other.
I ask so many questions. So many basic questions. Because I am not a maker. Not in the same physical sense these artists are, and I feel like the best aspects of childhood. Curiosity. Imagination. Trust. Joy. And that wondrous feeling that I too have something to add, to create, to contribute.
And just like that, I’m back in my writing room, lying on the floor, spiral notebook open in front of me, pen in hand, and I discover my old friends, words, waiting for me as if they’ve simply been biding their time for the space in which to pour through me. And it continues like this for days.
There are conversations with other artists, and I find that they are just as curious about me as I am about them. They wonder about those artists who stay in the Staff House, only sometimes emerging at mealtimes and for daylit walks. They ask after story ideas, and I hear, “Where do your ideas come from?” And, “How do you know when it’s done?”
It’s an epiphany that my craft can be just as mystifying to other artists as theirs is to me. And that too is what Pentaculum is about. The communion of artists and craftspeople.
And then suddenly it is Friday, and it is the night of the writers’ reading, and I’ve been worrying about this moment the whole week. Selecting and reselecting my pieces, revising and polishing, and revising and polishing, working my stories like a worry stone until they’re shiny and compressed.
And then the moment arrives where I am called to the podium, asked to stand in front of other artists and share my work, and for a moment I think, “I shouldn’t be here.” But then I look up, and I see Nick, and I see Max the ceramics artist, and Samira the metalworker, and I see Jason from the wood studio, and all the other artists I’ve met over the course of the week, and I feel swept into a halo of warm energy, and I know they are rooting for me, that they are ready to hear my expression, that they understand the moment when you allow your creativity to be born into the world and shared with an audience, and I begin to read, and I know two things simultaneously…
I absolutely should be here, and I need to be here.
[All photos taken by Kyle Lang]
Kyle Lang writes from Oregon City, Oregon, where he lives with his wife and teenage daughter. He is currently working on fiction and standup comedy, but he has written and published nonfiction and poetry as well. He is currently a community organizer in his hometown, which keeps him grounded in service. He has published in Story Quarterly, Going Down Swinging and the M Review.
You can find him on Twitter and TikTok at @andoverworked.
