Author: G. Steve Jordan

Coming across a post in Maria Popova's blog, I recalled a Fresh Air interview years ago with then bandleader and trumpet player on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, Doc Severinsen.  When host Terry Gross asked him about the source of his inspiration he became uncomfortable and deflected the question. 

When she pressed him, he expressed reluctance and gave an ambiguous explanation that revealed that not only was he somewhat superstitious about dissecting the source of his talent, but also not sure if he had an answer.

Popova's post in her eclectic Brain Pickings blog contained this telling excerpt:

…Polish poet Wisława Szymborska considers why artists are so reluctant to answer questions about what inspiration is and where it comes from:

"It’s not that they’ve never known the blessing of this inner impulse. It’s just not easy to explain something to someone else that you don’t understand yourself."

I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam.

― Annie Dillard

Recently came across this observation by naturalist and author Henry David Thoreau and wondered if the sentiment he expresses – the feeling he describes– is ultimately the motivation that drives us to artistic expression:

Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.

In her book “Pilgrim At Tinker Creek" Annie Dillard reflects upon the nature of beauty:

Beauty itself is the language to which we have no key; it is the mute cipher, the cryptogram, the uncracked, unbroken code. And it could be that for beauty… there is no key… [that it] will never make sense in our language but only in it’s own…

Commenting on her work and her writing, author and environmentalist Rachel Carson made an observation that seems to be true of many fields of endeavor, especially creative pursuits:

The heart of it is something very complex, that has to do with ideas of destiny, and with an almost inexpressible feeling that I am merely an instrument through which something has happened — that I’ve had little to do with it myself.

[via]

The perennial adage directed at artists to find their own voice is reprised here by filmmaker Christopher Nolan:

You have to cross into this world of just pleasing yourself, just doing something because you want to do it. It was a very valuable lesson. The truth is you have to hang on to your own belief. At the end of the day, all you really have is your own belief, your own passion. You can't ignore the feedback. But you tell the story because you love it.

[via]

Art that speaks to any of us always comes from a very particular place,

and then we find ourselves in it in some kind of way.

                   – Elizabeth Alexander

[via]

"A good photograph is knowing where to stand."

                            – Ansel Adams

In 1812 composer Ludwig van Beethoven received an admiring fan letter from a little girl and sent back this touching reply:

The true artist is not proud, he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal; and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

[via]

“To me, beauty appears when one feels deeply, and art is an act of total attention”

                                                                    – photographer Dorothea Lange