G. Steve Journal

Stop Thinking

An ongoing theme in this collection of musings is the proper role of the intellect, if there is one, in the creation of art.  As a photographer who has relied more on instinct than intellect in choosing how and what to capture, I am typically unmoved by conceptual art that requires the viewer to engage intellectually with a piece.

Painter Agnes Martin shares this sentiment:

The great and fatal pitfall in the art field and in life is dependence on the intellect rather than inspiration. Dependence on intellect means a consideration of observed facts and deductions from observation as a guide in life. Dependence on inspiration means dependence on consciousness, a growing consciousness that develops from awareness of beauty and happiness. 

To live and work by inspiration you have to stop thinking. You have to hold your mind still in order to hear inspiration clearly.

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The Unknown

I can't pretend to know exactly what photographer Nadav Kander intended by this statement but maybe that's why it's worth considering:

“It’s all about the unknown – that’s what I look for in pictures of the sea or in landscapes. I’m looking for what it feels like to close one’s eyes and not know.”

 

Perfection!

Author Zadie Smith's recent short fiction in THE NEW YORKER -- Crazy They Call Me-- is a brilliant peek inside the head of jazz singer Billie Holiday as she reflects on the creative impulse as she perceives it:

...the surprise you feel in yourself, the sense of being directed by God, when something in the modulation of your throat leaps up, like a kid reaching for a rising balloon, except most kids miss while you catch it—yes, you catch it almost without expecting to—landing on an incidental note, a perfect addition, one you never put in that phrase before, and never heard anyone else do, and yet you can hear at once that it is perfection. Perfection! It has the sound of something totally inevitable…

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