« March 2015 | Main | May 2015 »
This telling observation by Ralph Waldo Emerson, applied to creative endeavors, speaks to the powerful notion of sidestepping the intellectual and yielding to the emotional:
The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety ... and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful: it is by abandonment.
Here's a provocative excerpt from a letter written by American painter Georgia O'Keefe that speaks to the mysterious nature of the artistic impulse and the necessity of trusting it:
Making the unknown—known—in terms of one’s medium is all-absorbing—if you stop to think of the form—as form you are lost—The artist’s form must be inevitable—You mustn’t even think you won’t succeed—Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing...