Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.

-Stendhal

Cerebration is the enemy of originality in art.  -Martin Ritt

How To Steal Like An Artist

I thought this article was interesting and relevant to all of us and our creative journeys:

How To Steal Like An Artist

Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strennthened by doing it.

-Robbie Gass

“The satisfaction of the creative impulse is a basic, biological need, essential to the health of the individual. Its aggregate effect on society is inestimable. Art is one of the few important means known to man for the articulation of this impulse. This is why the practice is as continuous as life itself.


Mark Rothko

To tiger below

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?


William Blake

“In 1968, I ran into Steve Lacy on the street in Rome. I took out my pocket tape recorder and asked him to describe in 15 seconds the difference between composition and improvisation. He answered:

In 15 seconds, the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what you want to say in 15 seconds, while in improvisation you have 15 seconds.

His answer lasted exactly 15 seconds and is still the best formulation of the question I know.”

- Frederic Rzewski -

The open air

“Never did I think so much, exist so vividly, and experience so much, never have I been so much myself - if I may use that expression-as in the journeys I have taken alone… The sight of the countryside, the succession of pleasant views, the open air… the absence of everything that makes me feel my dependence, of everything that recalls me to my situation - all these serve to free my spirit, to lend a greater boldness to my thinking, so that I can combine them, select them, and make them mine as I will, without fear or restraint.”

—

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Golden Notebook

“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: ‘You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.”

—

Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook

Keep the channel open.

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not our business to determine how good it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”

—	Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille