G. Steve Journal

Reminded Of Our Oneness

Art critic for THE NEW YORKER Peter Schjeldahl writes about how we might apprehend the Old Masters paintings when the pandemic is over and we're once again able to visit museums:

Here’s a prediction of our experience when we are again free to wander museums: Everything in them will be other than what we remember. The objects won’t have altered, but we will have, in some ratio of good and ill. The casualties of the coronavirus will accompany us spectrally. Until, inevitably, we begin to forget, for a while we will have been reminded of our oneness throughout the world and across time with all the living and the dead. The works await us as expressions of individuals and of entire cultures that have been—and vividly remain—light-years ahead of what passes for our understanding. Things that are better than other things, they may even induce us to consider, however briefly, becoming a bit better, too.

[via]

See What Happens

Time and again we learn of artists who, in attempting to explain the creative process, can only suggest that it's mysterious ... ineffable. The conventional wisdom is that, although inspiration can't be willed into existence, it does require the artist to consciously make a space for it to reveal itself.

Here's musician Robbie Robertson from the opening scene of the movie about The Band, "Once Were Brothers":

I don’t have much of a process of, like, thinking about this and now I’m going to write a song and it’s going to be about that…. A lot of times, the creative process is trying to catch yourself off-guard , and you sit down and you’ve got a blank canvas and you don’t know what you're going to do, and you just see what happens.

 

Highest of Arts

We're currently in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic – the Coronavirus outbreak – and one's thoughts understandably skew darker during these uncertain times. 

Though it may be challenging to achieve, Henry David Thoreau wisely counseled cultivating an optimistic outlook:

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look ... To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Fill In The Blanks

The sentiment expressed here by marketer Seth Godin seems especially relevant to artists trying to find their own voice...

Other than multiple-choice, this is one of the easiest ways to work through a test or a workday.
Find the blanks, fill them in.
Here’s the question: Who decided what the blanks were?
We get to write our own, any time we choose.
Life’s actually an essay, not a series of responses to someone else’s agenda.

[via]

Interest

"Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous."

                                                                                                         – Georgia O'Keefe

 

The Sense of Wonder

Perhaps it is curiosity — about anything and everything — that made me the writer I am. It has never left me…

With this attribute goes another which I prize above everything else, and that is the sense of wonder. No matter how restricted my world may become I cannot imagine it leaving me void of wonder. In a sense I suppose it might be called my religion. I do not ask how it came about, this creation in which we swim, but only to enjoy and appreciate it.

                                                                                                                        –– Henry Miller

[via]

 

Watch The World Turning

Even members of the creative community can succumb to the prevailing sentiment that one must keep busy, though often little distinction is made between being busy and being creative.

A recent piece in the NY TIMES “Is Anyone Happy Anymore?” was a reminder of the importance of taking time to pause, reflect on and be grateful for the moment – like the farmer, Michael, who’s questioned by the author:

Because Michael seemed to be working on the land all day every day, into the fall of darkness and beyond, and never complained, I once asked him if he ever took a holiday.
“A holiday?” He looked at me like the innocent I was.
“I mean, what do you do to be happy?”
The question was a novelty to him and he considered it from all sides before answering.
“When I want a holiday,” he said at last, “I go over the road as far as the meadow. I go in there, take off my jacket, and lay down on it. I watch the world turning for a bit, with me still in it.”
He smiled then, and held me in his blue Atlantic eyes, full of the ordinary wisdom of a well-lived life, a wisdom that saw the many failings of the world but our still breathing and dreaming in it, and with a conclusive nod that defeated all arguments said, “That’s happiness.”

[via]

 

As Fast As You Can

Freelancer's Union founder Sara Horowitz reflected recently on the eve of her moving on about her guiding philosophy which, not surprisingly, is relevant to all of the creatives her organization represents:

I have this eternal faith that good people are going to keep struggling. There’s this beautiful phrase, which is something to the effect of “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it."

The baton’s passed to you, you run as fast as you can, then you pass it to the next one. Whatever is difficult in our world, we have the obligation to try really hard.

Transcending The Material

Fresh Air's Terry Gross recently interviewed filmmaker Martin Scorsese and, when she asked him his thoughts about what he thinks happens after death, Scorsese referenced the mental state one has as an artist in the midst of creating:

There's something that happens that's transcendent. I'm talking about trying to find a moment of that. I think it approaches sometimes when we create something and we feel something from what we create that gets us close, I think, to a sense of transcending the material.

 

Greatest Lesson

A dominant theme of these posts has been about the tension that exists between intellect and emotion in creating art.

We’ve featured many observations by artists who, consciously or unconsciously, allow the emotional component of their creative vision to inform the work, like songwriter Allee Willis.

Willis, who recently passed away, penned many hits, most famously with the band “Earth, Wind & Fire” and she credited band member Maurice White with her success. She describes here, succinctly and poetically, what he taught her about the proper relationship between intellect and emotion:

I learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which was never let the lyric get in the way of the groove.

[via]