Again, your words ring ever so familiar. The older I get and the deeper I get into this creative life I am learning that those "other" creative "distractions" actually fuel the whole. I am more and more happy to go dig up my garden or complete some long over due carpentry on my home. Sure, time painting is important, but so is the time just looking and thinking. When the paintings finally arrive they are usually worth the wait.
An interesting trip down memory lane as you sort through the early phases of discovering yourself as an artist, a creator not a copier. I love the Dean Richardson reference and your own experience with the metaphorical dartboard during the first year in New Mexico. I had friend, a poet, back in the Brooklyn days and she talked about her process in a way that combined the two approaches you outline: her "workday" began in her writing room at maybe 8:00 am and extended into the early afternoon, every weekday. In that time, much of her activity comprised drinking a lot of coffee, looking out of the window or wandering around the room mindlessly picking things up and putting them down. But, she said, she needed the discipline of the room and the designated time in it, to allow the creative voice to emerge when ready.
Two quotes I hold dear popped into my mind after reading your thoughtful piece. I do not have answers. I too struggle with my own demons and questions. But I thought you might appreciate these.
“Artists don’t get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working.”
― David Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
'Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.'
Those are good!! One of my favorites — often attributed to Cole Porter, but who knows where it really came from — was when some adoring admirer gushingly asked “Don’t you just LOVE to write?” And whoever it was replied: “I sometimes like having written.”
“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.”
Again, your words ring ever so familiar. The older I get and the deeper I get into this creative life I am learning that those "other" creative "distractions" actually fuel the whole. I am more and more happy to go dig up my garden or complete some long over due carpentry on my home. Sure, time painting is important, but so is the time just looking and thinking. When the paintings finally arrive they are usually worth the wait.
An interesting trip down memory lane as you sort through the early phases of discovering yourself as an artist, a creator not a copier. I love the Dean Richardson reference and your own experience with the metaphorical dartboard during the first year in New Mexico. I had friend, a poet, back in the Brooklyn days and she talked about her process in a way that combined the two approaches you outline: her "workday" began in her writing room at maybe 8:00 am and extended into the early afternoon, every weekday. In that time, much of her activity comprised drinking a lot of coffee, looking out of the window or wandering around the room mindlessly picking things up and putting them down. But, she said, she needed the discipline of the room and the designated time in it, to allow the creative voice to emerge when ready.
Two quotes I hold dear popped into my mind after reading your thoughtful piece. I do not have answers. I too struggle with my own demons and questions. But I thought you might appreciate these.
“Artists don’t get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working.”
― David Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
'Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.'
— Leonard Cohen
Those are good!! One of my favorites — often attributed to Cole Porter, but who knows where it really came from — was when some adoring admirer gushingly asked “Don’t you just LOVE to write?” And whoever it was replied: “I sometimes like having written.”
What a good disarming piece of writing.
Making without discovery and risk is merely copying what already exists.
One more favorite:
“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.”
― May Sarton