July 9, 2021 Weekly Musings
Posted on July 09 2021
Blogs:
What Is Creating?
Posted July 5, 2021
Featured image: Sunflower Study II
What is creating?
It is work – all creating is work.
Where does creating come from?
Feelings? Or from the ability to see through one’s own eyes and to think for oneself?
What does and artist choose to create? Or why is the words "to create" linked to the idea and the concept of what an artist is?
I believe that there is a sacred fire which burns within an artist. I don’t believe it comes from an artist’s feelings. I do not believe it comes from out in space and lands specifically on an artist. I don't believe that the artist is a special person who makes it be seen and that this thing only happens to artists.
Rather, I believe creating is work and the sacred fire is the fire of an artist – a creating wanting to know the truth, and to question.
So I ask, "How can one think that creating is relative and subjective to feelings?" I find that extremely impossible. It would mean that there is no value and no meaning in what I create.
Creating begins with an abstract thing which in reality has no identity. This thing is real. That is why it has been agreed upon that it exists. This thing can be a combination of real things. This 'combination' is a different way of seeing and thinking about real things. This real thing requires thinking about it and seeing it.
The artist takes the real thing from reality and creates a concept about the remix of abstractions and identifies it. Identifying it gives it a label, new or old – and combines it with other concepts, abstractions and identifies and forms the possibility of a proposition.
I know, I know that is a lot to think about. But, my main point is – you have to think to be creative and if you are an artist who creates then you have to think. It isn’t about feelings that come from nowhere. It is about reality and its combinations. Then, you put these combinations out there. For a visual artist, it is a painting, or a sculpture. For a musical artist, it is a different song.
This sort of spirit, courage, and love for the truth is the identification part of this whole equation. It's the identification that everyone agrees upon because It's based within that which is real. It's been identified through a set of reasons, which are objective. For example, a table is a table, a rock is a rock, a painting is a painting etc. (Side note here – just because it is a painting doesn’t make it art). This sort of spirit and courage takes discipline. It takes effort and tension in your thinking, in you mind. It doesn’t come from nowhere. It is an unrelenting strain on the power that comes from a thinking mind that creates a work of art.
Choose To Create
Posted July 6, 2021
Featured image: Amaryllis
As an artist you believe that when you create a work of art, you recognize that you are choosing to honor your life and who you are. A work of art should honor your uniqueness and individuality.
To create a work of art you choose to live, honor and control your existence through your work. The choice is a hard one because you are choosing to actually create a work of art rather than borrow the ideas of another and call it art. And, to put yourself out there is hard. Really hard. But, it is more important to you that you honor who you are than to compromise who you are. It is more important to honor how you think, rather than to honor how others think. You had to use your mind, rather than allow your mind to go blank and just do what another has done. When you choose the latter, then you are not choosing to create, truly create. You are not honoring who you really are and what you are capable of.
When you give up thinking your soul, spirit and mind begin to atrophy and work routinely, like a machine. Your mind, your soul you spirit is then just a machine at the service of others.
Choose to create.
Choose your own soul.
Choose your mind and drive it as far as it will take you.
Choose to create.
What Is Your Goal As An Artist?
Posted July 7, 2021
Featured image: Touch of Spring
Is your goal as an artist to be famous and make tons of money?
Or is your goal as an artist to achieve as much as you are supposed to achieve in your life? Is your purpose in life to live? As an artist is it to create? Do you push yourself as far as you and your mind will go in order to be able to stay alive and honor who you are in life?
I answer, "Yes," to live. I answer “Yes," to create. I answer “Yes," to honor my life.
I answer “Yes."
Your Creative Goals
Posted July 8, 2021
If you choose to share the creative journey that you're on, make sure that the others you choose to share it with are on the same journey. Make sure that these other travelers are going on their own power and their creative goals are their own.