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Pearls from artists* # 115
* 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 DISQUIETING MUSES
From Two de Chiricos
[On Giorgio de Chirico]
Boredom sets in first, and then despair.
One tries to brush it off. It only grows.
Something about the silence of the square.
Something is wrong; something about the air,
It’s color; about the light, the way it goes.
Something about the silence of the square.
The muses in their fluted evening wear,
Their faces blank, might lead one to suppose
Something about the silence of the square.
Something about the buildings standing there.
But no, they have no purpose but to pose.
Boredom sets in first, and then despair.
What happens after that, one doesn’t care.
What brought one here – the desire to compose
Something about the silence of the square.
Or something else, of which one’s not aware,
Life itself, perhaps – who really knows?
Boredom sets in first and then despair…
Something about the silence of the square.
Mark Strand in Art and Artists: Poems, edited by Emily Fragos
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 99
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
I think there are two very interesting stages in creative work. One is confusion and one is boredom. They generally both mean that there’s a big fish swimming under the water. As Rilke said, “Live the questions.” And not judge that there’s something wrong about confusion, because the people who are working, say, on the cure for leprosy – they work for years and years in a state of confusion, and very often they don’t find the cure. They find something completely different. But they keep living the question. Confusion is absolutely essential to the creative process. If there was no confusion, why do it? I always feel that all of us have questions we’re asking all our lives, for our work, and if we ever found the answer, we’d stop working. We wouldn’t need to work anymore.
Boredom – if you’ve ever been in therapy, you’d know that when you start getting bored, that’s really important. The therapist sits up; there’s something going on, because the wall that you come against – that’s where the real gold is. It’s really precious.
Andre Gregory (from My Dinner with Andre) in Anne Bogart, Conversations with Anne: Twenty-four Interviews
Comments are welcome!