Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 569
With Jennifer and Dmitri after our film shoot in Alexandria, VA
*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 consider themselves to be independent people. But the artist’s independent, rebellious, nonconforming nature, coupled with his introspective habits of mind, also make him wary of social interactions. Whereas the fireman, for example, has no reason to believe keeping company with other firemen will diminish his ability to fight fires, the artist, keenly aware that his journey is a personal and independent one, often fears that contact with his peers will slow him down, detour him, limit him, or unduly influence him.
Eric Maisel in A Life in the Arts: Practical Guidance and Inspiration for Creative and Performing Artists
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 332
Glenstone Museum, Potomac, MD
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
And your doubt may become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become critical. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perplexed and embarrassed perhaps, or perhaps rebellious. But don’t give in, insist on arguments and act this way, watchful and consistent, every single time, and the day will arrive when from a destroyer it will become one of your best workers – perhaps the cleverest of all that are building at your life.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, Translation by M.D. Herter Norton
Comments are welcome!
barbararachkoscoloreddust.com 