Sri Lanka

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

Artists, when they are absorbed in their work, are also deeply connected to other human beings.  The theologian Matthew Fox said, “The journey the artist makes in turning inward to listen and to trust his or her images is a communal journey.”  The psychologist Otto Rank argued that, “The collective unconscious, not rugged individuality, gives birth to creativity.”

To be sure, artists are not making real contact with real human beings as they work in the studio, but they are making contact in the realm of the spirit.  The absence of the pressures real people bring to bear on them allows them, in solitude, to love humankind.  Whereas in their day job they may hate their boss and at Thanksgiving they must deal with their alcoholic parents, in the studio their best impulses and most noble sentiments are free to emerge.

Eric Maisel in A Life in the Arts

Comments are welcome!