Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Sketch to Canvas - "Piano"
Another summer sketch that turned into a painting. This drawing was about the some times turbulence and necessity of playing for me. The painting I did in the fall in about 25 minutes before having to leave for somewhere. I was frustrated over all my not painting or creating and decided to quickly do at least something under time pressure.
Sketch to canvas - "Prayer"
While I do a lot of reading about other people's art, I do in fact work on a few projects of my own now and then, emphasis on now and then. Below is a sketch I did in the summer, followed by the 8 by 10 inch acrylic version I did this winter.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Broccoli
The minister who once performed our wedding ceremony now pastors a thriving church in Seattle called Bethany Community Church. Many in his congregation are university students and he often uses illustrations from the arts. One of his online sermons in January featured parts of the movie "The King's Speech" and was about how our calling in life is shaped. He said it's not always about just going with our passions or what we really love to do. Our calling can also come with the "broccoli on our plate". Difficult circumstances, disappointments or trying people, all of which are actually part of an intentioned shaping of who we're to become and what we're to do.
Dylan quotes continued
More from the book Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews
page 150 "..I try to write the song when it comes. It try to get it all...cause if you don't get it all, you're not gonna get it."
page 151 "I hurried for a long time. I'm sorry I did. All the time you're hurrying, you're not really as aware as you should be. You're trying to make things happen instead of just letting it happen."
page 180 "You must be vulnerable to be sensitive to reality."
page 189 "Music attracts the angels in the universe."
page 192 "I have to get back to playing music because unless I do, I don't really feel alive. I don't feel I can be a filmmaker all the time. I have to play in front of people in order just to keep going."
page 207 "Your spirit flies when you are making music."
page 150 "..I try to write the song when it comes. It try to get it all...cause if you don't get it all, you're not gonna get it."
page 151 "I hurried for a long time. I'm sorry I did. All the time you're hurrying, you're not really as aware as you should be. You're trying to make things happen instead of just letting it happen."
page 180 "You must be vulnerable to be sensitive to reality."
page 189 "Music attracts the angels in the universe."
page 192 "I have to get back to playing music because unless I do, I don't really feel alive. I don't feel I can be a filmmaker all the time. I have to play in front of people in order just to keep going."
page 207 "Your spirit flies when you are making music."
Sunday, February 19, 2012
We are Borg
Just watched some re-runs of the space series Voyager where Seven of Nine, former Borg drone, continues to explore her regained humanity amidst flashbacks of her childhood capture and assimilation by the mechanistic Borg. In one episode Captain Janeway attempts to introduce Seven to the virtues of art, specifically sculpture, in a Da Vincian hologram studio. Seven obediently puts a piece of clay on Janeway's half finished sculpture, then matter of factly states:
"This activity is truly unproductive. The end result has no use; no necessary task has been accomplished. Time has been expended, nothing more."
Captain Janeway patiently explains to Seven that it's a matter of perspective. She herself finds great pleasure in working the clay and creating something. It's relaxing for her.
Seven says, "The concept of relaxation is difficult for me to understand. As a Borg my time was spent working at a specific task. When it was completed, I was assigned another. It was efficient."
I have to say I laughed loudly watching this again, mainly because I too was assimilated in my youth. Borg thinking and living weren't the prettiest but they were efficient. Analysis and knowledge meant survival and even a measure of success. Over time, though, the rest of my humanity kept trying to reassert itself. In response my left/logic brain made consistent, mostly unconscious efforts to suppress and bully the right/Gestalt side of me. After years of this, the integrity of my personhood started to disintegrate.
Like the crew that took Seven from her captors and brought her onto their ship, a few, fellow life crew members have been rescueing and re-humanizing me. It has been slow. Often my Borg collective still seems like paradise lost. Many times the process is painful or terribly akward. I've am still like Seven of Nine learning to eat food for the first time as an adult. Having Nelix look at my blank expression and kindly tell me to pick up the fork, put a little food on it like a shovel, put it in my mouth, chew and then swallow.
"This activity is truly unproductive. The end result has no use; no necessary task has been accomplished. Time has been expended, nothing more."
Captain Janeway patiently explains to Seven that it's a matter of perspective. She herself finds great pleasure in working the clay and creating something. It's relaxing for her.
Seven says, "The concept of relaxation is difficult for me to understand. As a Borg my time was spent working at a specific task. When it was completed, I was assigned another. It was efficient."
I have to say I laughed loudly watching this again, mainly because I too was assimilated in my youth. Borg thinking and living weren't the prettiest but they were efficient. Analysis and knowledge meant survival and even a measure of success. Over time, though, the rest of my humanity kept trying to reassert itself. In response my left/logic brain made consistent, mostly unconscious efforts to suppress and bully the right/Gestalt side of me. After years of this, the integrity of my personhood started to disintegrate.
Like the crew that took Seven from her captors and brought her onto their ship, a few, fellow life crew members have been rescueing and re-humanizing me. It has been slow. Often my Borg collective still seems like paradise lost. Many times the process is painful or terribly akward. I've am still like Seven of Nine learning to eat food for the first time as an adult. Having Nelix look at my blank expression and kindly tell me to pick up the fork, put a little food on it like a shovel, put it in my mouth, chew and then swallow.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
More from Bob
From the book Bob Dylan, The Essential Interviews:
pg. 175 "The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do?"
pg. 370 (interviewer on first line) Dylan told me that he doesn't consider himself to be a profressional songwriter. "For me it's always been more con-fessional than pro-fessional."
pg. 415 "I have to impress myself first, and unless I'm speaking in a certain language to my own self, I don't feel anything less than that will do for the public, really."
pg. 426 (of his album Love & Theft) "If it's a great album - which I hope it is - it's a great album because it deals with great themes. It speaks in a noble language."
pg. 175 "The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do?"
pg. 370 (interviewer on first line) Dylan told me that he doesn't consider himself to be a profressional songwriter. "For me it's always been more con-fessional than pro-fessional."
pg. 415 "I have to impress myself first, and unless I'm speaking in a certain language to my own self, I don't feel anything less than that will do for the public, really."
pg. 426 (of his album Love & Theft) "If it's a great album - which I hope it is - it's a great album because it deals with great themes. It speaks in a noble language."
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Bob
A few days ago I reluctantly took Bob Dylan back to the library. This book was one of the more interesting, motivating ones I've read in a long while. From my full page of quote notes here are a few to send you on your way.
From Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews
pg. 10 "Anything worth thinking about is worth singing."
pg. 16 "The way I like to write is for it to come out the way I walk or talk."
pg. 26 "I have to make a new song out of what I know and out of what I'm feeling."
pg. 108 When asked why he ran away from home as a youth, he said,
"It was nothing; it was just an accident of geography."
From Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews
pg. 10 "Anything worth thinking about is worth singing."
pg. 16 "The way I like to write is for it to come out the way I walk or talk."
pg. 26 "I have to make a new song out of what I know and out of what I'm feeling."
pg. 108 When asked why he ran away from home as a youth, he said,
"It was nothing; it was just an accident of geography."
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Deported Dreams
I've been thinking about the true story of a highly gifted young man centuries ago whose promising life and career seemed to take a disastrous detour. Even as a teenager he had the gift of administration. His father made him a supervisor in the family business. It is recorded that the young man had significant leadership dreams and was also a bit arrogant about his skills.
Through a series of apparently unfortunate events, this young man was deported as a slave. Gone was his job, the privileges, doting father, inheritance and grand dreams. He was bought by a high ranking government official in a foreign land. In spite of the new language, strange culture and no personal rights, the young man quickly moved up in his employment. His owner recognized the new slave's gifts and put them to use. Soon he was made administrator over the official's entire estate. Other government people crossed his path. He learned about protocol and the inner structure of how the country was run. For all the sorrow of being taken from his home country and people, his life now seemed as good as it could get.
Then, more disastrous events. The young man's high position was sabotaged by a false charge. He could have been killed but ended up in prison. Meanwhile, the warden took notice of this model prisoner and gave him some responsibilities. Before long the young man was virtually running the prison under the warden's overseeing eye. At one hopeful point a chance appeared for a fair trial and release but the moment passed. More months and years went by.
Finally, the unthinkable and undreamable. In a crisis, the country's highest ruler had the young man, now close to 30, brought before him from prison. A palace official had put in a good word. The ruler urgently needed a one-of-a-kind administrator to avert a looming national disaster with international ramifications. The young man who had been a slave for nearly half his life was released from prison and elevated to prime minister. In the next years, his gifts, knowledge, experience, and even the seeming disasters and detours, were foundational to his effective national governing. The positive effects of his position reached even to his original homeland. Eventually, though he lived in this foreign land until his death, he was reunited with his father and family. Before he died, he asked that his bones be buried in his original country, which they were.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? But it's history. Now if we had our "Dream Coach" who'd asked us to read this story, I think we'd be asked questions like:
Are you experiencing an apparent gifting detour or dream disaster?
What might you be learning now from these experiences that could be useful someday?
Through a series of apparently unfortunate events, this young man was deported as a slave. Gone was his job, the privileges, doting father, inheritance and grand dreams. He was bought by a high ranking government official in a foreign land. In spite of the new language, strange culture and no personal rights, the young man quickly moved up in his employment. His owner recognized the new slave's gifts and put them to use. Soon he was made administrator over the official's entire estate. Other government people crossed his path. He learned about protocol and the inner structure of how the country was run. For all the sorrow of being taken from his home country and people, his life now seemed as good as it could get.
Then, more disastrous events. The young man's high position was sabotaged by a false charge. He could have been killed but ended up in prison. Meanwhile, the warden took notice of this model prisoner and gave him some responsibilities. Before long the young man was virtually running the prison under the warden's overseeing eye. At one hopeful point a chance appeared for a fair trial and release but the moment passed. More months and years went by.
Finally, the unthinkable and undreamable. In a crisis, the country's highest ruler had the young man, now close to 30, brought before him from prison. A palace official had put in a good word. The ruler urgently needed a one-of-a-kind administrator to avert a looming national disaster with international ramifications. The young man who had been a slave for nearly half his life was released from prison and elevated to prime minister. In the next years, his gifts, knowledge, experience, and even the seeming disasters and detours, were foundational to his effective national governing. The positive effects of his position reached even to his original homeland. Eventually, though he lived in this foreign land until his death, he was reunited with his father and family. Before he died, he asked that his bones be buried in his original country, which they were.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? But it's history. Now if we had our "Dream Coach" who'd asked us to read this story, I think we'd be asked questions like:
Are you experiencing an apparent gifting detour or dream disaster?
What might you be learning now from these experiences that could be useful someday?
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Vacuum
There are some empty spaces in my life lately which I frankly despise. I would never choose these or wish them on anyone I liked. If I had a dog I wouldn't wish this on it. Unless it was yappy. I would dearly love to do without these missing pieces. (Do 2 nothings make a double negative?)
In my peripheral life vision I'm catching something odd going on in this season of personal vacuum. Bits of poetry are starting to swish out of my mind's corners. I am not a poet. Too right brained. Why say what's already been said and likely better? Scraps of rhyme and rhythm - those least intuitive and confusing spelling words - are appearing on my thought screen. Like a different person I feel compelled to write them in a journal. My default question "What's the point?" is by-passed by this cabin decompression.
I don't like doing art when I'm by myself or when no one external is asking for it. Worth asking why, I suppose. On the immediate surface it seems too meaningless and lonely. "What's the point?" quickly annihilates solitary creativity for me. Playing with a band, on the other hand, is instant artistic and meaningful gratification. My most pleasing pleasure. In spite of myself I'm being driven to the other, lonely artistic spaces that are deserts to me. Not blooming ones. I would like to believe that something good can come from this.
Randomly: Here are some words I tend to use too much in life. Save me, Thesaurus.
INSPIRING: cheering, eloquent, motivating, promising, nurturing, nourishing, impelling, energizing, inducing, sparking..
NICE: attentive, conscientious, exact, fastidious, good, kind, pleasant, right, tasteful..
INTERESTING: alluring, fascinating, captivating, charming, enchanting, enravishing, entrancing, enthralling, fetching, catching, winning, winsome, prepossessing, exciting, charismatic, mesmeric, hypnotic...
In my peripheral life vision I'm catching something odd going on in this season of personal vacuum. Bits of poetry are starting to swish out of my mind's corners. I am not a poet. Too right brained. Why say what's already been said and likely better? Scraps of rhyme and rhythm - those least intuitive and confusing spelling words - are appearing on my thought screen. Like a different person I feel compelled to write them in a journal. My default question "What's the point?" is by-passed by this cabin decompression.
I don't like doing art when I'm by myself or when no one external is asking for it. Worth asking why, I suppose. On the immediate surface it seems too meaningless and lonely. "What's the point?" quickly annihilates solitary creativity for me. Playing with a band, on the other hand, is instant artistic and meaningful gratification. My most pleasing pleasure. In spite of myself I'm being driven to the other, lonely artistic spaces that are deserts to me. Not blooming ones. I would like to believe that something good can come from this.
Randomly: Here are some words I tend to use too much in life. Save me, Thesaurus.
INSPIRING: cheering, eloquent, motivating, promising, nurturing, nourishing, impelling, energizing, inducing, sparking..
NICE: attentive, conscientious, exact, fastidious, good, kind, pleasant, right, tasteful..
INTERESTING: alluring, fascinating, captivating, charming, enchanting, enravishing, entrancing, enthralling, fetching, catching, winning, winsome, prepossessing, exciting, charismatic, mesmeric, hypnotic...
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Obvious Revelations
Last week I was looking for online lectures about art and came across an interview with actor Shawn Wallace. I found out he is also a prolific playwrite and has acted in a great deal more than Princess Bride. The interviewer asked Wallace why he'd started writing essays. Shawn said he'd been looking around and noticing a lot of very obvious things in life that no one else seemed to be writing about.
In a biography on singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell by Mark Bego I recently found a few quotes I really liked. I had no idea she was such a dedicated painter as well.
From page 133 " I feel like I'm married to this guy named 'Art'. I'm responsible to my 'Art' about all else."
Joni likened her songs to children, saying, "My family consists of pieces of work that go out into the world. Instead of hanging around for nineteen years they leave the nest early."
"The most important thing is to write in your own blood. I bare intimate feelings because people should know how other people feel."
From page 142 " I had this talent I had to feed."
In a biography on singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell by Mark Bego I recently found a few quotes I really liked. I had no idea she was such a dedicated painter as well.
From page 133 " I feel like I'm married to this guy named 'Art'. I'm responsible to my 'Art' about all else."
Joni likened her songs to children, saying, "My family consists of pieces of work that go out into the world. Instead of hanging around for nineteen years they leave the nest early."
"The most important thing is to write in your own blood. I bare intimate feelings because people should know how other people feel."
From page 142 " I had this talent I had to feed."
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Wish world
Hello. Welcome to my first blog entry, "inspired" by personal discouragement and creative loneliness. Not quite as cheerful as it sounds. Nevertheless, I'm trying to keep my mind busy so I don't mope too much. I hope to recycle the current yuk into something useful. At least for myself but maybe for others of you who are in the creative blahs now and then.
Let me tell you about my wish world. This is where my imagined creative coach regularly sends me "you can do it" notes of inspiration. My dream coach frequently asks me what creative ideas I have, looks at or listens to what I've been working on, finds out what is hard for me, and always gives me great ideas for what to think about or try next. When I get down and things seem pointless, my wish coach has a greater vision for my gifts and keeps reminding me to take the next step toward the big picture. If I pout and refuse to do anything creative, dream coach tells me to get off my duff and stop being an idiot. In wish world, my creative coach also leads by example, faithfully doing their own creative stuff, always experimenting, learning and growing artistically and personally.
I've met little pieces of this dream coach in the odd real world conversation. More often, though, in reading biographies or interviews of creative people. A big part of my "get through the blahs"self-medication is submerging myself in reading the lives of famous creative people. Next time I hope tell you about some of these people, who to me have been vastly interesting and inspiring (I have to find a new word for that. It'll be threadbare soon).
And finally, here's a quote from a completely different world, an online financial publication which recently bought me a smile and even a chuckle:
"It's better to own real things. You can't print real estate, oil or gold."
Let me tell you about my wish world. This is where my imagined creative coach regularly sends me "you can do it" notes of inspiration. My dream coach frequently asks me what creative ideas I have, looks at or listens to what I've been working on, finds out what is hard for me, and always gives me great ideas for what to think about or try next. When I get down and things seem pointless, my wish coach has a greater vision for my gifts and keeps reminding me to take the next step toward the big picture. If I pout and refuse to do anything creative, dream coach tells me to get off my duff and stop being an idiot. In wish world, my creative coach also leads by example, faithfully doing their own creative stuff, always experimenting, learning and growing artistically and personally.
I've met little pieces of this dream coach in the odd real world conversation. More often, though, in reading biographies or interviews of creative people. A big part of my "get through the blahs"self-medication is submerging myself in reading the lives of famous creative people. Next time I hope tell you about some of these people, who to me have been vastly interesting and inspiring (I have to find a new word for that. It'll be threadbare soon).
And finally, here's a quote from a completely different world, an online financial publication which recently bought me a smile and even a chuckle:
"It's better to own real things. You can't print real estate, oil or gold."
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