WELCOME TO MY LIFE IN TECHNICOLOR!!

Crazy colors for a crazy life!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Essential Ingredient for Creativity


In reading Jan Phillips' Marry Your Muse, I found a discussion about "active laziness," a malaise that afflicts many of us in western cultures (from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche). Our tendency is to fill our lives with myriad petty projects that keep us from the *real* questions of importance: Why are we here? What are we doing with our lives? Are we honoring our talents by spending our time expressing them? Is my life "living me" or am I living my life? Is my artist's discipline worthy of my artist's dream?

*What is the calling of your heart?*

Time is an essential ingredient for creativity.

I've finished painting for the Amsterdam Whitney Gallery show in November. My postcard for it will be out in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, I've completed another painting in my horse series in the cool palette. This one is "A Society of Friends," 30x30 oil on canvas.

Meanwhile, I ponder some words I heard Georgia O'Keeffe "say" in the TV movie about her life: "I have been absolutely terrified my entire life, and I've never let it prevent me from doing a single thing I've wanted to do." Perhaps this philosophy can help us supplant "active laziness."