I came across an excerpt from Henry David Thoreau's essay, Walden, and was reminded of his unique ability to offer clear-eyed expositions of the most ethereal subjects– in this case, his musings on the subtle rewards of a life spent in careful observation of the natural world and the rare insights revealed, the essence of which applies to most creative endeavors:

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. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

Former trial lawyer Denise Shekerjian, curious to explore notions of creativity, chose to focus on recipients of the MacArthur "Genius Grant" and in 1991 completed a book on the subject: "Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas Are Born."  Here's one of the broad conclusions she reached:

Staying loose, allowing yourself the freedom to ramble, opening yourself up to outside influences, keeping a flexible mind willing to entertain all sorts of notions and avenues — this is the attitude that is most appropriate for the start of any project where the aim is to generate something new.

[thanks BP]

I’m moving from stills into video production and to learn more I recently attended some seminars where I heard a phrase that immediately struck a chord with me: “failing forward.”  Of course!  That’s the perfect metaphor for how one should approach a new and daunting path – we’re bound to screw up, so be sure you’re taking something from the experience that advances you toward the distant objective.

Came across an excerpt from the marketing guru Seth Godin that speaks to this strategy:

The object isn’t to be perfect. The goal isn’t to hold back until you’ve created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine.

In chatting with visitors to the gallery I've learned most assume landscape photography requires patience — waiting for the right light.  That may be true for some photographers but is not the style I've found most successful. 

I've had more luck approaching the challenge with a spirit of discovery and an open mind, not unlike many of the artists I've written about in earlier posts: Maira Kalman, Alex Webb, Steve McCurry…etc.

Though the following excerpt from an essay by Oscar Wilde refers to the viewer of art, it seems to me equally important that the artist cultivate a similar mindset during the creative process:

The temperament to which Art appeals … is the temperament of receptivity. That is all.
If a man approaches a work of art with any desire to exercise authority over it and the artist, he approaches it in such a spirit that he cannot receive any artistic impression from it at all.

[thanks, BP]

This observation by writer Virginia Woolf seems a perfect description of any artist's creative response to aspects of the world that strike a particular chord:

A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it; and in writing (such is my present belief) one has to recapture this, and set this working (which has nothing apparently to do with words) and then, as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it.

[thanks BP]

In 1952, E.B. White sent Ursula Nordstrom a letter about his book Charlotte’s Web.  I think the sentiment he expresses perfectly describes many creative impulses that are acted upon but remain difficult to describe:

I haven’t told why I wrote the book, but I haven’t told you why I sneeze, either.

A book is a sneeze.

[thanks, Brain Pickings]

Poet T. S. Eliot, writing about the creative process, described a feeling of release — when quotidian stresses momentarily lift and allow one an unimpeded path to deeper understanding:

…we do not know until the shell breaks what kind of egg we have been sitting on.

[thanks Brain Pickings]

In an Op-ed piece in the NY TIMES, Ann Della Subin explores the subject of procrastination and suggests that perhaps it is a natural response to our over-scheduled modern world, asking the question:  "Why not view procrastination not as a defect, an illness or a sin, but as an act of resistance against the strictures of time and productivity…?" Della Subin holds out as an example the novelist Albert Cossery:

“Firm in his belief that time is not as natural or apolitical as we might think, Cossery, in his writings and in his life, strove to reject the very system in which procrastination could have any meaning at all…Rather than charge through the day, storming the gates of tomorrow, his stylized repose was a perch from which to observe, reflect and question whether the world really needs all those things we feel we ought to get done… "So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it,” Cossery would say.

Musician Jeff Buckley was interviewed by an Italian journalist two years before his accidental death and I came across excerpts of his musings on music and life that echo the sentiments of other creative people:

[What I want to communicate] doesn’t have a language with which I can communicate it. The things that I want to communicate are simply self-evident, emotional things. And the gifts of those things are that they bring both intellectual and emotional gifts — understanding…. It’s not my information, it’s not mine. I didn’t make it. I just discovered it.

[Thanks, Brain Pickings]

Another telling and provocative excerpt from the journal of artist Anne Truitt:

The terms of the experience [of being an artist] and the terms of the work itself are totally different. But if the work is successful — I cannot ever know whether it is or not — the experience becomes the work and, through the work, is accessible to others with its original force.

For me, this process is mysterious. It’s like not knowing where you’re going but knowing how to get there.

[thanks, Brain Pickings]