Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 635
Bourges, France
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
When we focus on the future, we do one of three things. We fantasize, which involves big dreams that are mostly for fun and entertainment; we dwell, which involves focusing on all the bad stuff that might happen – this was the official pastime of my hometown – or we hope, which involves envisioning the future while recognizing the inevitability of challenges. Interestingly, more hopeful people anticipate setbacks along the way and work to remove them. And yet I always imagined that hopeful and optimistic people are just born that way…
The Book of Hope: A survival Guide for Trying Times, Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 350
Ahmedabad, India
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Seeing is not a passive awareness of visual data, but an active focusing upon it, “touching” it. Arnheim writes, in language that echoes the Hindu notion of seeing and touching: “In looking at an object we reach out for it. With an invisible finger we move through the space around us, go out to the distant places where things are found, touch them, catch them, scan their surfaces, trace their borders, explore their texture. It is an eminently active occupation.”
Diana L. Eck in Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 207
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.
More than in any other vocation, being an artist means always starting from nothing. Our work as artists is courageous and scary. There is no brief that comes along with it, no problem solving that’s given as a task… An artist’s work is almost entirely inquiry based and self-regulated. It is a fragile process of teaching oneself to work alone, and focusing on how to hone your quirky creative obsessions so that they eventually become so oddly specific that they can only be your own.
“What It Really Takes to Be an Artist: MacArthur Genius Teresita Fernandez’s Magnificent Commencement Address,” by Maria Popova in “brainpickings”
Comments are welcome!
barbararachkoscoloreddust.com 