A Pause for Beauty:
An Artist’s Journal
Below, the Art Journal posts for 2022.
Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits, nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.
- H.L. Mencken
Excerpts from my interview of Nathan Oliveira here.
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During my travels I had an opportunity to talk to a couple of readers about the written content of Reflections. One conversation in particular with a fellow artist has been on my mind. I asked her how these Reflections would be most interesting and useful to her. She turned the question around, and asked me what I would find most interesting if I was a reader. And then she asked what was most interesting to me as the writer.
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The true artists are, in essence, the most religious of mortals.
- Auguste Rodin
Creatives get energy and inspiration from each other. We learn from each other. For years, I traveled around North America asking artists about their lives.
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When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality - the reality, I tell you - fades. The inner truth is hidden - luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same; I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me...
- Joseph Conrad, from Heart of Darkness
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There are many pathways in this life and it doesn’t matter which one you take, for they all have a common destination, and that is the grave.
But some paths give you energy, and some take it away.
- Miguel de Cervantes
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Creativity relies on accidents, where unpredictable
combinations evolve.
We have a very strict day that we have to adhere to. By doing that we have the freedom to improvise. Creativity is about limits not about freedom. Freedom, you don't know what to do. But when you have a structure, you can improvise off of it and have confidence enough to come back to it.
- Jon Stewart interviewed on the radio show "Fresh Air"
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I am almost incapable of logical thought, but I have developed techniques for keeping open the telephone line to my unconscious, in case that disorderly repository has anything to tell me.
- Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy
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Get on your own track and dance, in balance, between the worlds.
It's true; life really is generous to those who pursue their destiny.
- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
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Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk, poet, and author. He wrote several books and countless articles on spirituality and religion (both Christian and Buddhist), politics, and literature.
In one (My Argument With the Gestapo), published after his death in 1968, Merton hunts for his inner self in the bombed out sections of London and occupied France, and avoids the Nazis by going right into their midst. Later he is interrogated by British Intelligence.
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Yesterday my art failed. Today I haven't painted. Later maybe. I remind myself that if I'm not failing often, I am not trying hard enough, not experimenting enough. The key is getting in the right frame of mind — peaceful, relaxed, reflective. But if I can't do that, I need to paint regardless. Professionals show up regardless.
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In 1946, when Ray Charles heard that Lucky Millinder’s band was coming to Orlando for a gig, he managed to get an audition. It was his first chance at the big time. This was the band that made records that Ray loved. At the appointed hour, Ray walked in, seated himself at the piano and began to perform, singing and playing with all his might. Millinder sat quietly listening. At the end of the audition, the young musician confidently waited for the praise he knew would be forthcoming. Instead, silence. Then the chilling words: "Ain't good enough, kid."
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As long as creative people feel in harmony with their work and are progressing they are happy and fulfilled. When the relation breaks down their interior life also breaks down.
- From At a Journal Workshop by Ira Progoff
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Creative people are especially observant, and they value accurate observation (telling themselves the truth) more than other people do. They often express part truths, but this they do vividly, the part they express is the generally unrecognized; by displacement of accent and apparent disproportion in statement they seem to point to the usually unobserved.
- Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy
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When you are not painting, you take notes. That is when the ideas come to you. But when it is time to paint, you put your notes away and immerse yourself in music for a long time. When you finally pick up the brush, there are no preconceptions or sketches and you feel completely serene. The image is born from under the brush and grows more and more distinct. Then, throwing hesitation to the winds, you set your brush to work — liquid ink does not permit procrastination, or else all is ruined and everything lost.
- Gao Xingjian from Return to Painting.
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I always get up and make a cup of coffee while it is still dark — it must be dark — and then I drink the coffee and watch the light come. Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process. For me, light is the signal in the transition. It's not being in the light, it's being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some sense.
- Toni Morrison
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My many weaknesses are starting to show their heads. I simply must get this thing out of my system. I'm not a writer. I've been fooling myself and other people. I wish I were.
- John Steinbeck, written in his journal August 16, 1938, when he was writing Grapes of Wrath. As quoted in the book Working Days.
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I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'
- Jack Kerouac, On The Road
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Do you live so that you can hear the song within, the song that no one can sing but you?
With this, the first e-journal of the relaunch of Heron Dance, I dedicate the work, this publication, to what Robert Henri called the "song from within." And to my efforts to hear it. And sing it.
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