Category Archives: Inspiration
Pearls from artists* # 279
“Offering,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 20″ x 26″
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Why is one compelled to write? To set oneself apart, cocooned, rapt in solitude, despite the wants of others. Virginia Woolf had her room. Proust his shuttered windows. Marguerite Duras her muted house. Dylan Thomas his modest shed. All seeking an emptiness to imbue with words. The words that will penetrate virgin territority, crack unclaimed combinations, articulate the infinite. The words that formed Lolita, The Lover, Our Lady of the Flowers.
There are stacks of notebooks that speak of years of aborted efforts, deflated euphoria, a relentless pacing of the boards. We must write, engaging in a myriad of struggles, as if breaking in a willful foal. We must write, but not without consistent effort and a measure of sacrifice: to channel the future, to revisit childhood, and to rein in the follies and horrors of the imagination for a pulsating race of readers.
Patti Smith in Devotion
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* #278
National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, La Paz, Bolivia
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Inspiration is an unforeseen quantity, the muse that assails at the hidden hour. The arrows fly and one is unaware of being struck, and that a host of unrelated catalysts have joined clandestinely to form a system of its own, rendering one with the vibrations of an incurable disease – a burning imagination – at once unholy and divine.
Patti Smith in Devotion
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 277
Lake Titicaca above Cocacabana, Bolivia
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Einstein wrote, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” What did Einstein mean by “the mysterious?” I don’t think he meant that science is full of unpredictable or unknowable supernatural forces. I believe that he meant a sense of awe, a sense that there are things larger than us, that we do not have all the answers at this moment. A sense that we can stand right at the edge between known and unknown and gaze into that cavern and be exhilarated rather than frightened. Just as Einstein suggested, I have experienced that beautiful mystery both as a physicist and as a novelist. As a physicist, in the infinite mystery of physical nature. As a novelist, in the infinite mystery of human nature and the power of words to portray some of that mystery.
Alan Lightman in A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 276
The West Village
* 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 long time later, after I became a novelist, I realized that the ambiguities of the human mind are what give fiction and perhaps all art its power. A good novel gets under our skin, provokes us and haunts us long after the first reading, because we never fully understand the characters. We sweep through the narrative over and over again, searching for meaning. Good characters must retain a certain mystery and unfathomable depth, even for the author. Once we see to the bottom of their hearts, the novel is dead for us.
Eventually, I learned to appreciate both certainty and uncertainty. Both are necessary in the world. Both are part of being human.
Alan Lightman in A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 275
“The Sovereign,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58″ x 38″ image, 70″ x 50″ framed
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Works of art… have a dominant function. They are objects of aesthetic interest. They may fulfill this function in a rewarding way, offering food for thought and spiritual uplift, winning for themselves a loyal public that returns to them to be consoled or inspired. They may fulfill their function in ways that are judged to be offensive or demeaning. Or they may fail altogether to prompt the aesthetic interest that they petition for. The works of art that we remember fall into the first two categories: the uplifting and the demeaning. The total failures disappear from memory. And it really matters which kind of art you adhere to, which you carry around in your heart. Good taste is… important in aesthetics… and indeed taste is what it is all about. If university courses do not start from that premise, students will finish their studies of art and culture just as ignorant as when they began. When it comes to art, aesthetic judgment concerns what you ought and ought not to like…
Roger Scruton in Beauty: A Very Short Introduction
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 274
Barbara’s 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.
“Beauty is never enough,” he said. “Meaning is more important. If something catches people’s eyes enough to make them move around it, they will build a story around it. And that will not just be about beauty.”
Eric Charles-Donatien in Feathered Glory: In a studio in Paris, an old craft is given new life by Burkhard Bilger in The New Yorker, Sept. 25, 2017
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 273
The Lightning Field
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
The night sky was clear, too many stars.
Satellites described distinctive arcs, moving too fast for
nature across our broad field of vision.
The desert floor was drenched with rainwater, and our boots
suctioned the mud.
The moon’s shy face revealed only a sliver, but the starlight
was strong enough for the poles to pick up its silver.
We watched time, light, and distance compress over The
Lightning Field.
The dome of the sky was palpable,
papered in stars.
How long ago did the light that reflected in the poles leave
its source?
Laura Raicovich in At The Lightning Field
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 272
Barbara’s 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.
One important distinction that can be made between physicists and novelists, and between the scientific and artistic communities in general, is what I shall call “naming.” Roughly speaking, the scientist tries to name things and the artist tries to avoid naming things.
To name a thing, one needs to have gathered it, distilled and purified it, attempted to identify it with clarity and precision. One puts a box around the thing and says what’s in the box is the thing and what’s not is not…
… The objects and concepts of the novelist cannot be named. The novelist might use the words love and fear, but these names do not summarize or convey much to the reader. For one thing, there are a thousand different kinds of love…
… Every electron is identical, but every love is different.
The novelist doesn’t want to eliminate these differences, doesn’t want to clarify and distill the meaning of love so that there is only a single meaning… because no such distillation exists. And any attempt at such a distillation would undermine the authenticity of readers’ reactions, destroying the delicate, participatory creative experience of a good reader reading a good book. In sense, a novel is not complete until it is read. And each reader completes the novel in a different way.
Alan Lightman in A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 271
Barbara’s 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.
The following quote is so true for artists also!
Without a powerful emotional commitment, scientists could not summon up the enormous energy needed for pursuing an idea for years, working day and night in the lab or at their desks doing calculations, often sacrificing the rest of their lives. It is little wonder that such a personal commitment sometimes causes the scientist to defend his or her beliefs regardless of facts.
Alan Lightman in A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 270
Barbara’s 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.
As Charlie Parker quipped, “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” And it won’t register in your bearing: this is the earned credit for trying to walk the daily tightrope and tell your story when you get to the other side.
Joel Dinerstein in The Origins of Cool in Postwar America
Comments are welcome
barbararachkoscoloreddust.com 