35 posts tagged “creativity”

 - Miranda July

When I began to study my dreams closely, I noticed how exquisitely made they are, how difficult to communicate that exquisite beauty to another because in most dreams the exquisite is idiosyncratic.  Each dream invents its own beautiful language, and something always gets lost in translation.  My dream was made for me as your dream is made for you.

A dream provides an exact tincture of the soul, a strong whiff - ammonia or perfume - to wake us from a faint-hearted life.'

 - Rodger Kamenetz, The History of Last Night's Dream

 - Virginia Woolf

'When I work, I work very fast, but preparing to work can take any length of time.'

 - Cy Twombly

'I dream a lot.  I do more painting when I'm not painting.  It's in the subconscious.'

 - Andrew Wyeth

'The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.'

 - Banksy

'It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.'

 - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

'This new way of looking at creativity recognizes that all humans are endowed with the capacity for creativity, and that while that capacity (like the ability to lift or run or any other human capability) varies from person to person, it can be developed - or hindered.  It also recognizes, as Alfonso Montuouri and Isabella Conti write, that creativity can be expressed in all realms, no just in the artist's loft or the rocket scientist's lab.  It therefore changes the classification of what is and is not a "creative product" - as much of contemporary art has begun to do - recognizing that in fact it is "ordinary" creativity, the creativity we invest in our day-to-day lives, that is often most extraordinary since, as Elizabeth Dodson Gray writes, it can give far more meaning, and even sanctity to our lives.'
 - Riane Eisler, Sacred Pleasure

'I'm not trying to be funny here, but artists need to develop a feeling of privilege and a sense of good fortune, even if the feeling has to be artificially induced.  This self-foolery, a sort of mental levitation, brings on a state of mind that facilitates easy-going exploration.  The active seduction of one's own mind is a significant key to creative progress.'
 - Robert Genn excerpt via Whiskey River.  It's so good, click here to read the whole darn thing:  http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/2009/01/dear-artist-recent-activities-have.html

'He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.'
 - Henry David Thoreau

  'A work of art, has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual, and only the individual reader is important to me.'
- Vladimir Nabokov

'You don't know you're in a ghetto until somebody goes over the wall, I suppose.'
- Theresa Duncan

'This time she came upon a large flower-bed, with a border of daisies and a willow-tree growing in the middle.
"O Tiger-Lily!" said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, "I wish you could talk!"
"We can talk!" said the Tiger-Lily, "when there's anybody worth talking to."'
- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

...you are probably on the right path.

'To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.'
- Joseph Pearce
'The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.'
- Frank Herbert
'Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.'
- John Lennon

"There is for each man, perfect self-expression.  There is a place which he is to fill and no one else can fill, something which he is to do, which no one else can do; it is his destiny!
This achievement is held, a perfect idea in Divine Mind, awaiting man's recognition.  As the imaging faculty is the creative faculty, it is necessary for man to see the idea, before it can manifest.
So man's highest demand is for the Divine Design of his life...
...The perfect plan includes health, wealth, love and perfect self expression.  This is the square of life, which brings perfect happiness.  When one has made this demand, he may find great changes taking place in his life, for nearly every man had wandered far from the Divine Design.
I know, in one woman's case, it was as though a cyclone had struck her affairs, but readjustments came quickly, and new and wonderful conditions took the place of old ones.
Perfect self expression will never be labor; but of such absorbing interest that it will seem almost like play.  The student knows, also as man comes into the world financed by God, the supply needed for his perfect self-expression will be at hand.
Many a genius has struggled for years with the problem of supply, when his spoken word, and faith, would have released quickly, the necessary funds."  -- From The Game of Life and How To Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn.

Have you ever taken a picture of a favorite scene on tv?  Yesterday we caught the last half of Gus Van Sant's "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and it inspired us to do just that.  This shot is when our plucky heroine, Sissy Hankshaw (she's an amazing hitchhiker on account of her giant thumbs) wakes up from her night spent with a wise man in his mountain-top cave.  The night before she had asked him what he believed and he just laughed - "Ha ha, ho ho, hee hee."  When she wakes up, she sees this rock, on which he has written, "I BELIEVE IN EVERYTHING, NOTHING IS SACRED.  I BELIEVE IN NOTHING, EVERYTHING IS SACRED."  And of course, since this movie is based on a totally brilliant Tom Robbins novel, the next rock she sees says, "BE YOUR OWN FLYING SAUCER, RESCUE YOURSELF."

We love so many things about Vivienne Westwood.  Recently, we've been privy to her Active Resistance to Propaganda manifesto and found an almost equal number of points agreeable and disagreeable.  Luckily, we know how to hold opposing ideas simultaneously and in the end, there is more here we like in terms of philosophical moxie than anything that slightly rubs us the wrong way.  We enjoy a special interest in manifestos and savor thoughts of cultural rebellion in the morning like the honey on our toast.  So, to that end we'd like to wet your whistle with some of the more delightful snippets from the 21 page manifesto...

"the whole future of art is at stake and depends on you and others controlling your imagination and listening to your best self,  - your human genius. 
Imagination is the driving force in human nature.  But it is likely to run wild and escape into the chaos of endless desire, unfulfilled longing and alienation."

"Art happens - no hovel is safe from it, no Prince may depend on it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy, and coarse farce. 
This is as it should be.  Why after centuries of freedom from it and indifference to it should the people have Art thrust upon them?  She has no desire to teach, no purpose to better others.
Art seeks the Artist alone.  Where he is, there she appears, and remains with him - loving and fruitful...  And when he dies she sadly takes her flight.
With the man, then, and not with the multitude, are her intimacies; and in the book of her life the names inscribed are few - scant indeed, the life of those who have helped to write her story of love and beauty."

"You are expensive - crap is not good enough for you.  Time is your luxury.  You like to be alone because you like to think.  As art lovers and readers you will converse with the highest forms of intelligence.  You will form your own opinions and your ideas will be the avant-garde.  Ideas will give you power and you will fire the imagination of your friends."

"Your journey has revealed to you that human beings have a choice: - we can cultivate the human genius and build a great civilization on earth.  Through art we can see the future.  It holds up a mirror of our human potential..."

To experience the manifesto fully, please see:  http://www.activeresistance.co.uk/