Category Archives: Creative Process
Pearls from artists* # 714
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on
A moment comes when we realize that we have fallen in love with our instrument, our sculptor’s tools, our dance floor, our computer. We are in love with music, art, literature, cooking, physics. We feel love of beauty, love of the craft well done, love of the material, of the instruments. We feel the sensuality of playing, and of listening, reading, seeing, learning. The desire to learn and to play, if we have it at all, the motive power of creation, is part of our innate makeup, that craving to reach beyond ourselves.
Stephen Nachmanovitch in Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
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Q: What’s on the easel today?
Work in progress
A: I continue slowly working on “Metamorph.” 26” x 20,” soft pastel on sandpaper.
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Pearls from artists* # 713
Dropping off “Magisterial” at the framer
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on
One of the great traps at times of blockage is that we may accuse ourselves of a deficit of concentration and focus, a deficit of discipline. We then take a paternal or militaristic attitude toward ourselves. We will force ourselves to work, we will go on a schedule, we will take vows. The most dangerous trap is to get into a contest of strength between “will power” and “won’t power.” Discipline is crucial, but we do not attain it by stiffening up. We attain it by sitting still and penetrating the emptiness within, making of that emptiness a friend rather than an adversary or bogeyman.
When you are stuck, meditate, free associate, do automatic writing, talk to yourself and answer yourself. Play with the blocks. Stay in the temenos of the workplace. Relax, surrender to the bafflement; don’t leave the temenos, and the solution will come. Persevere gently. Use intelleto, the visionary faculty. Stay close to the zero mark; indulge neither in great highs or great lows.
The depths are obscured in us when we try to force feelings; we clarify them by giving them adequate time and space and letting them come. What we experienced yesterday as the pride of creativity or the self-deprecating feeling of incapacity we see today as the signal to surrender.
Like the rules of the universe, the whole matter of personal creativity is baffling and paradoxical. To try to control yourself, to try to create, to try to break free of the knots you yourself have tied is to set yourself up at a distance from that which you already are. It is like looking around this way and that for your own head.
Stephen Nachmanovitch in Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
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Pearls from artists* # 712
Finished: “Magisterial,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38”
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on
To get to the idea of our relation to the creative impulses that flow through us, we can look at the way we respond to our own finished work. I have two responses. First, I’m done with the image in terms of my attachment to it. Whether the painting has succeeded or failed, I’m pretty much done with it.
But paradoxically, I also have an almost objective fascination with the marks and traces of my work when it is successful. I look at it and am fascinated by it, because I don’t know how I did it. It’s as if I’m looking at someone else’s work. I am more astonished by the result than anyone else might be. I know that I have been in the service of spirit, a channel for the divine.
Ian Robert’s in Creative Authenticity: 16 Principles to Clarify and Deepen Your Artistic Vision
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Q: What’s on the easel today?
Charcoal drawing
A: This preliminary charcoal drawing is my first tentative move towards the next “Bolivianos” pastel painting. I took the reference photo in February during my Bolivia trip to research and experience Carnival in Oruro.
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Pearls from artists* # 707
The Studio
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on
Intuition often serves as a diving rod that guides us to our secret language. ‘Listening to your gut’ is actually a rapid process of previous experience and cumulative knowledge that results in a seemingly sudden ‘educated guess.’ You may not be able to consciously access all the memories and information that led to your ‘hunch,’ but they are there, nevertheless. Many of us have a keenly developed sense of intuition, but do not trust it. But often, when we are deliberating a problem, we lay our head on our pillow, all the rational ‘pros and cons’ drop away, and we know the answer to our question. We simply need to cultivate and have faith in that knowing.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Q: What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them? (Question from Bold Journey)
A: The deepest wound was losing Bryan on 9/11. I resolved not to become another victim of that tragedy and chose to continue living and making art.
Because I depend on reference photographs for my work, my first hurdle was learning to use Bryan’s 4×5 view camera. He had always taken the photos for me. In 2002, I enrolled in a photography workshop at the International Center of Photography in New York. To my surprise, I had absorbed a lot just from watching him, and I went on to formally study photography for several years. In 2009, I was invited to present a solo photography exhibition in New York.
By 2003, I resumed my Domestic Threats series. The first large pastel I completed from one of my own photographs was titled She Embraced It and Grew Stronger. It was autobiographical: “she” was me, and “it” was life without Bryan.
That series ended in 2007, by which time I was finding more peace. But then I faced a new challenge: creative block. For months I struggled, but I kept showing up daily. Eventually, a breakthrough came, and I began the Black Paintings series. The dark backgrounds represented the place I had emerged from; the vibrant figures symbolized resilience and life.
In 2017, inspired by a museum exhibition in La Paz, I began Bolivianos, based on Carnival masks. Many view this as my boldest and most exciting work yet.
Comments are welcome!
Q: What’s on the easel today?
26” x 20” pastel painting in progress
A: I’ve just started a new “Bolivianos” pastel painting based on a photo captured at MUSEF La Paz during my February trip to Bolivia.
Comments are welcome!
Q: What makes you lose track of time — and find yourself again? (Question from Bold Journey)
A: When I’m having a productive day in the studio, I’m fully present and absorbed. Working in soft pastel on sandpaper, I become immersed in solving technical problems and improving the painting on my easel. Hours pass unnoticed, and I often need to remind myself to stop for lunch. Nothing exists except the work and my relationship with it. Most artists know this feeling of flow—a state of being that’s both natural and essential to creative work.
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Pearls from artists* # 697
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Serendipity (or synchronicity) is an occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. The concept of synchronicity was developed by psychiatrist Carl Jung in the early 1900s. He defined it as ‘meaningful coincidences.’ They seem like ‘signs’ or ‘clues’ from the universe that provide missing pieces to your puzzle. Your brain is busy trying to solve your Art problem. You are open, tuned into what your unconscious already knows, and is trying to help you access. Thousands of thoughts a day pass through your brain as you navigate the world, but you suddenly see, hear, or think a flash of something that triggers your unconscious to put on the brake, and call out, ‘Wait! Stop! That’s it! That’s what we need!”
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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