Up: [[Visual Arts]] Created: 2023-03-06 Updated: 2026-02-08 > [!Orbit] Nick Cave in *Faith, Hope and Carnage* > For me that is what the creative process is, *for sure* — it is the act of retelling the story of our lives so that it makes sense. (p. 8-9) > [!Orbit] Nick Cave in *Faith, Hope and Carnage* > …I suspect that for me the world is enlivened by the creative process. It enhances the way I see things and makes the world feel sufficient, even abundant. Without creative engagement in the world, without contributing to the spirit of the world, I think I would start to feel a bit like an onlooker or something…. I measure my life, song by song, in order to continue a creative journey that will surely never reach its destination….The songs are like signposts left along the way that signify the journey itself — like a trail of breadcrumbs on the forest floor. (p. 170-171) > [!Orbit] [[Lynda Barry]] > It is the act of making that brings inspiration. > [!orbit] Octavia E. Butler > First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. > [!Orbit] Helen Frankenthaler > I’d rather risk an ugly surprise than rely on things I know I can do. > [!orbit] Julia Cameron > The creative process is one of [[Surrender]], not control. > [!Orbit] Darby Bannard > Start a painting with fresh ideas, and then let the painting replace your ideas with its ideas. > [!Orbit] Rick Rubin in *The Creative Act* > Let go of control. Release all expectations of what the work will be. Approach the process with humility and the unexpected will visit more often. Many of us are taught to create through sheer will. If we choose [[Surrender]], the ideas that want to come through us will not be blocked….. > With your intention set, and the destination unknown, you are free to surrender your conscious mind, dive into the raging stream of creative energy, and watch the unexpected appear, again and again. > As each small surprise leads to another, you’ll soon find the biggest surprise: You learn to trust yourself -- in the universe, with the universe, as a unique channel to a higher wisdom. > This intelligence is beyond our understanding. Through grace, it is accessible to all. (p. 274) > [!Orbit] Charles Eames > Art resides in the quality of doing; process is not magic. > [!Orbit] Joseph Campbell > You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen. > [!Orbit] Alan Jacobs > Nothing we do is better than the work of handmind. When mind uses itself without the hands it runs the circle and may go too fast; even speech using the voice only may go too fast. The hand that shapes the mind into clay or written word slows thought to the gait of things and lets it be subject to accident and time. > [!Orbit] E.M. Forster > Think before you speak is criticism’s motto; speak before you think, creation’s. > [!Orbit] Judith Gomez > Creativity emerges from the inner yearning to find and express meaning in life. > [!Orbit] Cathy Wild in *Wild Ideas: Creativity from the Inside Out* > Ultimately, creativity goes far beyond talent or the act of originating something — it is a way of approaching life. Creativity embraces life, with all its joys, uncertainties, complexities, and problems; and it transforms these problems into vehicles for learning, discovery, and healing. Whenever you need to make a decision or take an action requiring you to go beyond the familiar, you engage the creative process. (p. 17) > [!Orbit] Cathy Wild in *Wild Ideas: Creativity from the Inside Out* > Frustration, anxiety, self-doubt, uncertainty, confusion — all the emotions I had judged as premonitions of failure — are part of the process…. the skills required to pursue that process have more to do with passion and persistence than with talent. (p. 31) > [!Orbit] Brenda Ueland > … imagination needs moodling — long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. > [!Orbit] Sören Kierkegaard > To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself. > [!Orbit] Claude Monet > I owe everything to the close union of solitude and silence, to a passionate and exclusive attention akin to hypnosis. > [!Orbit] Petah Coyne > There’s an art to wandering, to visiting new places with your eyes wide open and your senses alert. > [!Orbit] Mason Cooley > A blocked path also offers guidance. > [!Orbit] Isaac Singer > Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate execution. > [!Orbit] [[Marion Woodman]] > Only if the tension between anxiety and fascination is held, will the combustion point occur. > [!Orbit] May Sarton > I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. > [!Orbit] Cathy Wild in *Wild Ideas: Creativity from the inside out* > You don’t need the approval of an audience to enjoy the deeply satisfying experience of having poured your heart and soul into something you care about, something that is uniquely yours. A creative life can be a private pleasure — a quiet communion. (p. 273) > [!Orbit] David Bayles and Ted Orland in *Art & Fear: Observations on the perils (and rewards) of artmaking* > In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive. > [!Orbit] Ian Roberts in *Creative Authenticity: 16 principles to clarify and deepen your artistic vision* > We have to realize that in our art, we need to go through the same process of search, with all the same kinds of dead ends and idiotic attempts that go on privately inside our mind throughout the day. This is just the way the creative process works. Avenues need to be explored, ideas tested. And like our thinking processes, most don’t work. Some are clearly ridiculous. (p. 152) > [!Orbit] Ian Roberts in *Creative Authenticity: 16 principles to clarify and deepen your artistic vision* > I suspect there are only two ways to deal with the creative process. First, with courage. Just recognize the need for exploration and storm on. Second, with experience. With experience we move from product thinking to process thinking. We still want a good result, but with time we become more relaxed about how we are going to get there and what happens along the way. > ….The question is not whether you are creative ‘enough’ but whether you will free yourself to express the creativity that is uniquely yours. (p. 153) > [!Orbit] Robert Henri > What we need is more sense of the wonder of life, and less of this business of making a picture. > [!Orbit] Chuck Close, painter and visual artist > All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case. > [!Orbit] Shaun McNiff in *Trust the Process: An artist’s guide to letting go* > Trusting the process and accessing the energies of creative movement is a discipline…. It is not simply a matter of surrendering to circumstances and external forces. The creative process requires the active participation of the artist over a period of time. …. Just as the meditator practices staying with the object of meditation no matter what thoughts, sensations, or other distractions arise, the artist learns how to stay connected to the image being constructed and the process of creation, assimilating whatever occurs into the creative act. (p. 16) > [!Orbit] Shaun McNiff in *Trust the Process: An artist’s guide to letting go* > If we work in a safe and supportive environment with … unconditional positive regard for our expression, the process of creation will ultimately proceed to a stable and meaningful outcome. The most threatening element is the lack of confidence that people have when the process becomes difficult and tense. They don’t realize that the conflict and uneasiness that they are experiencing are necessary and “part of the process.” Transformation occurs when we lose our way and find a new way to return. (p. 25) > [!Orbit] [[John O’Donohue]] > Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. > [!Orbit] [[C. G. Jung]] > Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.