G. Steve Journal

Alive and Present

We’ve been fans of cartoonist Lynda Barry since coming across her unique perspective on the world way back in the 80’s and purchasing her unforgettable poster: “Poodle With A Mohawk.”

A recent and well-deserved recipient of the Macarthur “Genius Grant”, Barry has offered advice about harnessing the creative process for decades, including this observation:

….there are two working languages in human life. One is sort of top of the mind, what we’re conscious of. The other is this unconscious stuff that we might not know about or have access to. The way we access it is usually through this thing we call ‘the arts.’ Unfortunately, that has gotten removed from the regular daily experience of human life. What I’m trying to do is to show that there is a way that they can come together, and that you can make things in a way that makes you actually feel alive and present.

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Trying To Be Born

When asked by an interviewer about the motivation for his work, Kiowa Indian author and poet N. Scott Momaday quoted fellow writer William Gass:

 

I don’t write for myself, that would be self-serving
I don’t write for an audience, that would be pandering
I write for the thing that is trying to be born

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Unknown Known

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant — there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing — and keeping the unknown always beyond you.

                                                                                                            –– Georgia O'Keefe

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Just Enough

With the recent opening of the movie "Motherless Brooklyn," Daniel Riley interviewed actor/director Edward Norton in a piece the appeared in GQ.

Like all artists who strive to find their own creative path forward, Norton describes the challenges of executing his vision:

I don’t think it was different for Melville,” he says. “I don’t think it was different for Walt Whitman. Everybody who’s ever tried to communicate through work has struggled with the needs of the ego, and the higher aspirations toward patience and conviction that the work really is just enough.

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