What Inspires you in YOUR creative process?

[Robin]

I like her quote. Maybe I should re-think painting, and see where I can go from there.

[Peter]

Dvora wrote: "Ruth, I agree with you. I recently started a blog and my plan is to post about once a week. I recently went to a classic car show and decided to write about it. The problem was that I had nothin..."

Dvora, I too am a writer of all sorts, and have struggled with the concept of a daily practice. Blogging has really helped with this and has even been the starting point for my most recent publication and upcoming manuscript.

While my primary blog is The Buddha Diaries (http://thebuddhadiaries.blogspot.com/), I also have a blog called Persist (http://pcpersist.blogspot.com/), a space to expand and further investigate the ideas expressed in my most recent publication Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce. The book examines the predicament of creative people of all kinds (artists, writers, musicians, actors...) in today's cultural environment, which is too often dominated by money and celebrity.

In all honesty however, I was looking forward to people being a little more open about contributing their own experiences with the creative struggle. Perhaps this is the place! Thrilled to find so many liked-minded others!

[Ed]

Peter wrote: "Dvora wrote: "Ruth, I agree with you. I recently started a blog and my plan is to post about once a week. ...In all honesty however, I was looking forward to people being a little more open about contributing their own experiences with the creative struggle. Perhaps this is the place! Thrilled to find so many liked-minded others!..."

Peter, I sometimes write about my art adventures on my blog. Here's a post I did on how changing around doing things can sometimes take you in new directions.

ed smiley's art blog: Mixing it Up

Here's an older post, "Being Lost" on how I fell into my current technique, by trying something without really any idea as to where it would lead:

Being Lost
“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renenwed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.”--J.R.R. Tolkien

Being Lost can mean many things. It can mean being trapped and unable to proceed. Or it can be a voyage of discovery, of openness....
More...

[Dvora]

I don't know what to say. Money (commerce) and celebrity, but not celebrity of gifted and special people, simply celebrity of many very average people, seems to rule our world. I live, unhappily at the moment, in an isolated situation, and yet I feel inclined to crawl even further under a rock and escape all the hype. I'm always glad to meet others who share some or all of my views.
Peter wrote: "Dvora wrote: "Ruth, I agree with you. I recently started a blog and my plan is to post about once a week. I recently went to a classic car show and decided to write about it. The problem was tha..."

[Peter]

Ed wrote: "Peter wrote: "Dvora wrote: "Ruth, I agree with you. I recently started a blog and my plan is to post about once a week. ...In all honesty however, I was looking forward to people being a little m..."

Dvora,

Here are two essays I wrote a while back that I think might resonate with you. Having a creative mind is a challenge that I think many people take for granted. There are so many elements to sustaining peace and harmony while battling the outside forces that might take away from the one thing that makes us whole: our practice.

See what you think about these ideas. And let us all continue to persist!

Cultivate A Rich Heart
http://pcpersist.blogspot.com/2011/06...

I Do It For Myself
http://pcpersist.blogspot.com/2011/05...

[Peter]

Ed wrote: "Peter wrote: "Dvora wrote: "Ruth, I agree with you. I recently started a blog and my plan is to post about once a week. ...In all honesty however, I was looking forward to people being a little m..."

Ed,

Really enjoying your blog! It's wonderful to read about your experiences with your practice, something I contemplate all the time.

I wrote this one a while back about the thread between my meditation practice and my daily writing practice. Just the idea of "showing up" to your practice is vastly important in my mind and then the ways in which our minds trigger focus and concentration will surely come to follow.

PRACTICE
http://pcpersist.blogspot.com/2011/04...

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! It's a topic that stays close to my heart.

[Ed]

On that note, there was a great post about "talent".


...we are basically asking, "Do we have talent?" ...It's the wrong question. In fact, I would say that if you are asking some master artist to confirm or deny your talent, you already are in a heap of trouble ...

read more:
Art Talent -- Why Talent Is Not Relevant in Art:

The concept of talent wrongly makes it seem that art is for a select few only.
by Jerry Fresia
http://painting.about.com/od/inspirat...

[Dvora]

Ed, that article on talent makes good sense to me. I love to get positive feedback, and sometimes I do. But not often. Most people who read my blog don't comment publically or privately.
But I feel the need to write it anyway. So I do. And I can tell (by my own standards) when I've written a good post and when it could have been better.
But still I disagree that talent isn't important or has no meaning. I'm not a genius or great at anything, but I think I have a talent for writing and music where I don't for painting. So I do those things that I feel come more easily to me because they simply give me more pleasure than struggling with a medium that doesn't work for me.

[Konrad]

What inspires my creative process?

I do sidewalk chalk with the neighborhood kids . We make these huge monsters like the figures seen in South America.... We have our ceremonial blue Kool Aid at down and then do wirily birds until we get creative visions sent from the stars.

[Ed]

Dvora wrote: "Ed, that article on talent makes good sense to me. I love to get positive feedback, and sometimes I do. ...But still I disagree that talent isn't important or has no meaning. ..."

Good point.

There is probably something like talent, that does exist. I still think that "talent" can be a trap.

However it is often more like being open to the talent you do have, and developing it. There's also a certain difference in the way each human being sees things; even if they are not as skilled to start with, there may be no one else who can bring that particular form to life.

There's a feedback loop that if you like something you will take the extra effort to be good at it, and if you are good at it, it will become easier to make an effort.

So talent is partly a creative attitude that enables the development of skill, as well as skill itself.

[Gianna]

Ed, I agree that it doesn't take just talent to produce great work. My grandparents and my patents are all artists so I often get "now I see where you get your talent from!" I think both nature AND nurture have been at work all my life and that positive feedback has always encouraged me to pursue my calling further.

I have to work to get the results I desire, yet the process of painting is such a catharsis for me, it's like exercising, yoga, dancing, baking and writing. Express or die. If the "expression" makes the world a better place for even myself or one other person , that is wonderful!!!

[Cindy]

Nature, colour, other artists and just a general desire to create daily....its my 'me' time and most times when I am in my pyjamas at night when the kids are in bed.

[Heather]

Hi Cindy! Welcome to the group!
I know what you mean about 'me time'. I am NOT an artist, I can only appreciate, but I do play the piano. That is my time. Time to reflect, work out problems in my head, and just relax. I can put my own expression into the music and that is my outlet.

[Geoffrey]

For years I was particularly inspired by monographs of photographers. I started out as a photographer and now I work with collage as well. I am inspired by Hannah Hoch and Holly Roberts work and will refer to them when I go dry. In the olden days I was principally an urban landscape/architectural photographer and was inspired by Mark Feldstein, Grant Mumford, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander and Stephen Shore.

[Heather]

Geoffrey, I know we talked about this...years ago, and I realized that I'd seen some of your work at the Knoxville Museum of Art. But it's been while since I lived there. Would you mind sharing some of your art with us? You can open your own thread in Talent of the Members. I would love to see it again!

[Eze]

Hello.... Am new here, can I know the bone of contention.

[Heather]

Hey Eze! I'm glad you've arrived! Thanks for joining us! I'm not sure what you are asking, though...

[Geoffrey]

Heather, I would love to show it but for some reason, my Compaq computer refuses to flash "the some html is ok link" I visited one of the local internet cafes and lo and behold there is a link but the image link is not in green so I can´t upload. I have written to GR techies and they have no idea how to connect me up. So if anyone wants to see my photo work, its on Flicker under Geoffrey Aronson. There are about 30 images from my series NOCTURNA CHROMA which was my masters thesis show work and most of my shows from 92 to the present. The one photo that Knoxville has in its collection is 00000037. It was taken at night a block away from the Jimmy Carter Center in Atlanta.

Sorry I can´t be of any more help.

[Geoffrey]

Oooops, that should be Flickr, NOT, Flicker.

[Heather]

Geoffrey wrote: "Heather, I would love to show it but for some reason, my Compaq computer refuses to flash "the some html is ok link" I visited one of the local internet cafes and lo and behold there is a link but ..."

Wow, Geoffrey, you are having issues! Wasn't it you that couldn't even post for awhile and you finally figured it out? (I'm glad about that at least!) I don't know what to tell you about your current dilemma. But I will look up your work. I want to see that one in Knoxville particularly. Is it still up there? Honestly, sadly actually, I haven't visited what I call my 'home' in TN since 2011. I plan to go back this year, though. But thank you for referencing it for me. I'll find it. Thank you!