You have read this article American Artists /
American Writer /
art /
creativity /
Mistakes /
Scott Adams
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2012/07/scott-adams.html. Thanks!
What is more important the work of art or the artist? Let me ask that again? Which is more important the creative work that you produce or yourself? For me, this is a difficult question. If I had to choose between the creative work that I have produced over the years or the person I have become, which would I choose. My first reaction would be that I would choose the work. I want it to outlast me. It is my ticket to immortality. It is what reaches far beyond where I can reach. It will touch people I will never meet. It will touch people who will not yet be born when I die. Yet, does the work really exist outside myself? If I had never lived, my work would never have been created.
Do you believe in art? Or do you believe in the artist who produced the work? Can one exist without the other? We know the creative work could never have existed without the artist, but can the artist exist without the creative work? I don't think so. If the art does not exist, then I, who believes he is an artist, does not exist. I and my art am one.
You have read this article art /
Artist /
Creative Work /
Death /
French Artists /
Marcel Duchamp
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2012/05/marcel-duchamp.html. Thanks!
You have read this article art /
GOD /
Hazrat Inayat Khan /
Indian Writer /
LOVE
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2012/02/hazrat-inayat-khan.html. Thanks!
My first encounter with death was when my grandfather (my father's father) died during my tenth grade school year. I served as one of pall bearers. A year later, a girl in my class died. She was a cheerleader and I never saw her again after the game. Sudden and quick death. When I was a freshman in college a sixteen year old girl I had known from my camp years died in an automobile accident. During the summer between my junior and senior year in college my girl friend's mother died of breast cancer. And the list could go on and on. Every year or two someone I know dies. And I am sure I am not unusual. Most people know someone who has died.
Death is an every day affair, and yet we know so little of it. We try to deny its existence. We seek ways to extend our lives. We avoid talking about it happening to us. Yet death stalks us and is always close by. We cannot avoid it. So our art becomes a form of salvation — a way to extend our lives beyond the grave, a way to keep us alive. Art gives us hope that maybe we too can live forever.
You have read this article art /
Death /
Jacques Lipchitz /
Lithuanian Artist /
Sculptor
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/10/jacques-lipchitz.html. Thanks!
One of main functions of any art form is to help people see something they had not seen before — to open their eyes to new ways of viewing the world. Does your creative work shed new light on the way we view the world? Does it help us see beyond our small private worlds and help us grasp a greater meaning about life?
Part of our role as creative leaders is to show people that there are multiple ways of viewing the world in which we live. There is not just one reality but multiple realities. Great art changes people in multiple ways. Our hearts and minds open and begin to see in ways we have never seen.
You have read this article American Artists /
art /
Art Forms /
Perception /
Perspective /
Photography /
Reality /
Robert Mapplethorpe /
Seeing /
Work
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/09/robert-mapplethorpe.html. Thanks!
"If you do not listen to your intuition, it will stop talking to you. Your intuition is like a sensitive friend. If you question it, censor it, judge it, it gets hurt and becomes silent."
You have to train yourself to listen to your intuition because your rational mind is very strong and often discards your intuition immediately. In fact, it sometimes happens so fast that what you think is your intuition is actually your second on third thought. The rational mind can move very quickly to override intuition. Train yourself to grab hold of your intuition and not let go. Learn to trust your feelings and first thoughts.
And in the beginning you will often misunderstand your intuition. Be patient. It is okay to make mistakes. The problem is not that your intuition is wrong, but that your interpretation is not accurate. Sometimes it will take years to perfect listening to your intuition. Trust your heart.
You have read this article art /
Books /
Creative Expression /
Creative Work /
creativity /
Discovery /
French Artists /
Intuitive /
Learning /
Listening /
Michele Cassou /
Practice /
Teacher
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/07/michele-cassou.html. Thanks!
When a nation or society has no respect for its artists, writers and musicians, it is a nation in danger of losing its humanity. I find it very sad that in this country where liberty is held in high esteem that there are people who choose to burn books. When my daughter was in high school, she knew teenagers who participated in the burning of books with members of their church. How ignorant these people must be. Books are our connection to the world beyond our immediate home. But it is not just in this country and it is not just books. In 2001 when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, they destroyed two 1700 year-old Buddha statues carved in a cliff in the Hindu Kush mountains. Other cultures have destroyed paintings. And governments and societies have tried to control the type of art works that are created. Both Hitler and Stalin restricted the type of art that could be created.
Artists, writers and musicians are one of the greatest treasures that a society has and yet people continue to treat them with contempt — telling them to get a real job. In fact, the way we know about the past is through the artists, writers and the musicians. We would know very little about ancient Rome or Greece if it were not for books and paintings. Future societies will know us primarily through the writers and painters of today. Our legacy is past down through our art.
Here is a poem by Heinrich Heine.
WHY THE ROSES ARE SO PALE
by: Heinrich Heine (1799-1856)
DEAREST, canst thou tell me why
The rose should be so pale?
And why the azure violet
Should wither in the vale?
And why the lark should in the cloud
So sorrowfully sing?
And why from loveliest balsam-buds
A scent of death should spring?
And why the sun upon the mead
So chillingly should frown?
And why the earth should, like a grave,
Be moldering and brown?
And why it is that I myself
So languishing should be?
And why it is, my heart of hearts,
That thou forsakest me?
This English translation of "Why the Roses are so Pale" was composed by Richard Garnett (1835-1906).
You have read this article art /
Book Burning /
Books /
Creative Expression /
German Writers /
Heinrich Heine /
History /
Limitations /
painting /
Reason /
Wisdom /
Writer /
Writing
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/07/heinrich-heine.html. Thanks!
"Without art; without paintings, books, sculpture and music, the human soul would be quite impenetrable, don't you think?"
— Jonathan Hull
American Novelist, Journalist
Can you imagine a world without art? No books to read. No writers of poetry. No paintings. No sculpture. No music. No theater. No movies. No stories. Could you live in such a world? And yet there are people who live lives without creating and appreciating the world of art. They have no interest in books, paintings or music. I for one could not live in such a world.
I have a strong need to create a work of art. To write a poem. To sing a song. To paint a picture. To tell a story. Without creative work, my soul would die a slow death. Celebrate the fact that you have the ability to appreciate great works of art. Believe that you have the skill to create great works of art.
You have read this article American Writer /
Appreciation /
art /
creativity /
drawing /
Gift /
Jonathan Hull /
painting /
poetry /
Writing
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/06/jonathan-hull.html. Thanks!
"Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you that music has boundaries. But, man, there's no boundary line to art."
— Charlie Parker
American Jazz Saxophonist, Composer
1920 - 1955
Our art comes from our experiences, our thoughts, our wisdom and our dreams. If we don't live life, art won't pour out of our brushes, our pens or our voices. We need the experiences from life to generate our art. We need to have loved and had our hearts broken. We need to face failure and survive. Art comes from our imperfections, not our perfections. If the world was perfect, we would never create. There would be no reason to create. We would be happy and satisfied. Art comes from our discontent — our unhappiness, our loneliness.
So if you have been fired from your job, write a story about the experience of being fired. Paint a picture of the boss that fired you. Recreate the world the way you wish it would be. If angel of death visits those you love, find a way to turn your grief into art. If the person to whom you gave the best twenty years of your life leaves you for a younger person, create a painting of your feelings. Anything that happens to you is fodder for your creativity. Absorb the experience and re-imagine it happening to one of your characters. Did you have an unhappy childhood? Alter the past by changing the story. Your life is the fuel for your art. So live life to the fullest.
Take a few minutes and listen to Charlie Parker and be inspired.
You have read this article American Musician /
art /
Charlie Parker /
Creative Expression /
Creative Journey /
creativity /
Death /
Failure /
Imperfections /
life /
Limitations /
paint brush /
pen /
Wisdom /
Writing
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/06/charlie-parker.html. Thanks!
"Writing is really just a matter of writing a lot, writing consistently and having faith that you'll continue to get better and better. Sometimes people think that if they don't display great talent and have some success right away, they won't succeed. But writing is about struggling through and learning and finding out what it is about writing itself that you really love."
If success comes too early, it can destroy an artist. Early success can create writer's block. Artists become overwhelmed by the success and stop painting. People start enjoying their celebrity status and forget about what brought them there. And sometimes they start believing their own press clippings. Sometimes it is better to wait until you are emotionally ready and have the wisdom to handle it.
If writing or painting comes too easy, people often lose interest and look for something more challenging. If writing is a struggle, then success when it comes will be sweeter. Have the faith to keep writing, to keep drawing or to keep painting even when there seems to be no hope of success.
You have read this article American Writer /
art /
Attitude /
Challenge /
Failure /
faith /
Fame /
Laura Kasischke /
Obstacles /
Opportunity /
pain /
Path /
patience /
Stumbling Blocks /
Success /
Suffering /
talent /
Work /
Writing
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/05/laura-kasischke.html. Thanks!
"I thought you had to give up a lot for art, and you did. It required complete concentration. It also required that whatever money you had had to be put into art materials."
What have you had to give up in order to be able to paint, or write or play music? Our muses can be demanding — asking us to give up relationships, friendships and even family. And sometimes our muses will drain our spirit and leave us battered and lifeless. Art requires the artist to be faithful and loyal. Art demands that we work hard, often with little or no respect, money or fame. We labor on day and night hoping that one day someone will discover us. Sometimes we hurt those we love. We sacrifice our family on the altar of creativity. And for what? The hope that maybe one day someone will notice. It takes a lot of courage to be an artist. To be willing to sacrifice so much. For some of us, we sacrifice our sanity or even our lives.
And yet, I think there is another way. We can find balance in our lives. We don't have to sacrifice everything. We can maintain our sanity without falling off the cliff. Don't let the creative impulse destroy you. Be strong. Find a way to balance the wild and crazy spirit with the routines of daily living. Maybe you can knit, take up yoga, play golf or simply take a walk. Embrace the whole you, not just the creative side. Anything taken to the extreme is destructive.
You have read this article Alice Neel /
American Artists /
art /
Artist /
Balance /
Chaos /
Courage /
creativity /
Loyalty /
Muse /
Sacrifice /
Sanity /
Spirit /
Suffering /
Work
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/01/alice-neel.html. Thanks!
All art (painting, sculpture, literature, music, etc) has something that cannot be explained, identified or understood. A work of art is greater than its creator. A work of art is greater than the sum of its parts. When you look at a painting what do you see? What do you not see? What is the soul of the painting? When you read a story what do you feel? What do you not feel? What is the heart of the story? When you listen to music what do you hear? What do you not hear? What is the spirit of the music?
When I write a poem, I don't always understand it and others may understand it even less. The poem has a life of its own — a meaning of its own. I will come upon it weeks, months and even years later and it has been transformed into something I do not know. Some days I like it and some I don't, but it is beyond my control. It laughs at me and demands that I leave it alone. It never thanks me for bringing it into existence. It accuses me of locking it in a closet. It says I was a terrible parent.
You have read this article art /
creativity /
Emotion /
French Artists /
Heart /
Listening /
Perception /
Pierre Auguste Renoir /
Reality /
soul /
Spirit
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/01/pierre-auguste-renoir.html. Thanks!
Growing up in a conservative Mennonite family, I was not exposed to art as a child. My maternal grandfather even discouraged photographs. My first exposure to art came my freshman year in college where in one of my classes we had to choose an artist to study. I chose Miro and his paintings planted in my soul a love of art. Artists, musicians and writers all plant seeds with their works of art. A great novel stays with you long after you have read it. When you fall in love with a painting, you come back to it again and again for it to refresh your soul. How many times do you listen to the same piece of music over and over. And each time you hear it years later, it brings back waves of emotion.
What seeds are you planting with your writing, your painting or your music? How is your art impacting your audience? What seeds have you planted in their souls?
I am curious. Please share with me who were the first artists, writers and musicians to touch your life.
You have read this article art /
Artist /
Joan Miro /
Line /
novelist /
painting /
Planting /
soul /
Sowing Seeds /
Spanish Artists
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/01/joan-miro.html. Thanks!
"The reason I spend thousands of lifetime hours creating something 99 percent of which no one else is likely to ever read is that writing itself is the gift."
Sometimes as writers we become caught up in the business of publishing and experience the hurt and pain of rejection. We become frustrated and sometimes quit writing because we don't think we are good enough. The need to write, to express ourselves, is not about being published. The need to write and to create is a gift in itself. Celebrate and honor the gift you have been given. Write for the sake of writing.
The same can be said of painting and any of the other forms of creative expression. Painting is not about selling your art to the highest bidder or having your painting hang in a museum somewhere. Painting is a gift to be honored and treasured. Respect and appreciate the gift that you have been given.
You have read this article American Writer /
art /
Attitude /
Blessings /
Celebration /
Christina Baldwin /
Creative Expression /
Gift /
Gratitude /
painting /
Writing
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/01/christina-baldwin.html. Thanks!
Our minds are very powerful and capable of doing more than we imagine. In a recent New York Times Book Review essay on the lives of aging writers, Godwin, 73, tells us that she is now able to compose paragraphs in her mind and retain them — something she was unable to do in her youth. She remembers as a young writer hearing Jorge Luis Borges tell his audience at the Iowa Writer's Workshop that blindness taught him to compose his stories in his head. I know of poets who compose poems in their minds and are able to recite them from memory.
Many young writers and artists feel that if they are not successful by the time they turn forty, they have failed. Yet, writing and painting is a learning process. Creativity does not rest with only the young. Some of us don't get our first wind until we are over sixty. I remember reading the story many years ago of a writer who published his first novel in his thirties and his second in his eighties.
While Gail Godwin is best known for her thirteen novels, she has also composed music with Robert Starer and keeps colored pencils at her bedside. On her website Godwin says that she will often draw before she goes to sleep. She says: "I also draw when I am baffled by some aspect of the character. Making a visual image of that character in action almost always reveals something new."
You have read this article Age /
art /
drawing /
Gail Godwin /
Learning /
Memory /
mind /
Work /
Writing
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/01/gail-godwin.html. Thanks!
Who selects the subject matter of your paintings? Your writing? Is it you the artist or writer? Is it society and the times you live in? Is it your muse? Is it the painting itself? Or the story itself? Is the selection of the subject matter arbitrary or based on your personal subconscious logic? Why do you put certain details in your painting and leave out others? Why do you write about ugly men and beautiful women in your stories? Why do you always write about the theme of being abandoned? Do you only paint little green apples or do you throw in a red one on occasion? I encourage you to step outside your comfort zone and paint something new. Seek new topics to write about. Explore new subjects.
The Clothed Maja (1803)
You have read this article art /
Artist /
Francisco de Goya /
Spanish Artists /
Subjects /
Themes /
Writer /
Writing
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2011/01/francisco-de-goya.html. Thanks!
People talk of taste as if it was real. It is an illusion of judgement. Every work of art, every poem, and every story has value. When people begin to label art as good or bad, they are creating false categories that are based on artificial judgements. What the majority label as good today may be considered bad tomorrow. You may like something or not like something which in itself is okay. Liking or disliking reveals something about you. There is nothing inherently bad or good within the work of art itself. The sense of good or bad is in the eyes of the beholder. Any judgement made about a work of art is actually a judgement of the person who made the statement.
While there may only be one person today who likes your art, it does not make the art bad. Two hundred years from now the majority of people may consider it a masterpiece. Taste is fickle and useless.
The Flower Carrier
Diego Rivera, the great Mexican Muralist, painted a number of murals in the United States during the 1930's. Edsel Ford hired him to paint a mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts which is still on view today. John Rockefeller commissioned him to paint a mural in New York. Since Rivera was a communist, he included a portrait of Lenin in the mural. When Rockefeller demanded that he remove the portrait from the mural, Rivera refused. Rockefeller had the mural destroyed. In the 1930's, a portrait of Lenin was unacceptable to the American public taste. A work of art was destroyed because the subject matter was unacceptable. Three hundred years from now, most people probably will never had heard of Lenin and nobody will be offended. Remember public taste is fickle and arbitrary.
You have read this article art /
Diego Rivera /
flowers /
Good or Bad /
Illusion /
Judgement /
Labels /
Mexican Artists /
Reality /
Taste
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2010/12/diego-rivera.html. Thanks!
"Picture and poem bear the same relationship to each other as beauty does in man and woman: the point of meeting where the two are identical is the supreme perfection."
Having spent over 35 years writing poetry and now painting for the last five years, I am fascinated by the point where poetry and painting meet. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was trained both as a poet and a painter and spent a lifetime writing poetry and painting pictures. He once said: "If any man has any poetry in him he should paint it, for it has all been said and written." And yet Rossetti saw himself more as a poet than a painter. He also said: "Painting being — what poetry is not — a livelihood — I have put my poetry chiefly in that form." And I would have to agree with his last point. While it may be difficult to make a living being a painter, it is even more difficult making a living from writing poetry.
Is there a poem inside you asking to be let out? Is there a painting inside you begging to be set free? I strongly encourage painters to write poetry and short stories. I think every poet and novelist should pick up a brush and spend a few hours painting. Remember it is not about being financially successful. It is about releasing your inner creativity.
Here is a poem by Rossetti:
The Honeysuckle
I plucked a honeysuckle where
The hedge on high is quick and thorn,
And climbing for the prize, was torn,
And fouled my feet in quag-water;
And by the thorns and by the wind
The blossom that I took was thinn'd,
And yet I found it sweet and fair.
Thence to a richer growth I came,
Where, nursed in mellow intercourse,
The honeysuckles sprang by scores,
Not harried like my single stem,
All virgin lamps of scent and dew.
So from my hand that first I threw,
Yet plucked not any more of them.
Here is a video on YouTube showing some of the paintings of Rossetti:
You have read this article art /
beauty /
British Artists /
British Writers /
Creative Expression /
creativity /
Dante Gabriel Rossetti /
paint brush /
painting /
Poet /
poetry /
Writing
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2010/12/dante-gabriel-rossetti.html. Thanks!
Art and literature are created at the point where the universe meets the imagination. The way we know the external world is through our senses. Our minds interpret what they see, feel, hear, smell and taste and create the world we imagine to be there. Even the most realistic painter or novelist interprets the world he sees with his imagination. Even the most imaginative artist finds the beginning of his creation in the universe.
What is the universe that you see in your mind's eye? What fantasies do you imagine to be real in your mind? Art is always an interpretation of the world. It is never the world. It is never reality. It is a pretend world that we believe to be true.
You have read this article Abstract Expressionism /
Alexander Calder /
American Artists /
art /
creativity /
Illusion /
imagination /
Perception /
Perspective /
Reality /
Reflection
with the title art. You can bookmark this page URL http://gem-vita.blogspot.com/2010/12/alexander-calder.html. Thanks!
"I don't believe in art. I believe in artists."
"Love that ends is the shadow of love; true love is without beginning or end."
"Art is an action against death. It is a denial of death."
"If you do not listen to your intuition, it will stop talking to you. Your intuition is like a sensitive friend. If you question it, censor it, judge it, it gets hurt and becomes silent."
You have to train yourself to listen to your intuition because your rational mind is very strong and often discards your intuition immediately. In fact, it sometimes happens so fast that what you think is your intuition is actually your second on third thought. The rational mind can move very quickly to override intuition. Train yourself to grab hold of your intuition and not let go. Learn to trust your feelings and first thoughts. 
When a nation or society has no respect for its artists, writers and musicians, it is a nation in danger of losing its humanity. I find it very sad that in this country where liberty is held in high esteem that there are people who choose to burn books. When my daughter was in high school, she knew teenagers who participated in the burning of books with members of their church. How ignorant these people must be. Books are our connection to the world beyond our immediate home. But it is not just in this country and it is not just books. In 2001 when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, they destroyed two 1700 year-old Buddha statues carved in a cliff in the Hindu Kush mountains. Other cultures have destroyed paintings. And governments and societies have tried to control the type of art works that are created. Both Hitler and Stalin restricted the type of art that could be created.
DEAREST, canst thou tell me why
"Without art; without paintings, books, sculpture and music, the human soul would be quite impenetrable, don't you think?"
"Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you that music has boundaries. But, man, there's no boundary line to art."
"I thought you had to give up a lot for art, and you did. It required complete concentration. It also required that whatever money you had had to be put into art materials."
"The reason I spend thousands of lifetime hours creating something 99 percent of which no one else is likely to ever read is that writing itself is the gift."
Sometimes as writers we become caught up in the business of publishing and experience the hurt and pain of rejection. We become frustrated and sometimes quit writing because we don't think we are good enough. The need to write, to express ourselves, is not about being published. The need to write and to create is a gift in itself. Celebrate and honor the gift you have been given. Write for the sake of writing.
"Within the last year I have discovered I can compose whole paragraphs in my head and find them waiting, intact, next morning."
Many young writers and artists feel that if they are not successful by the time they turn forty, they have failed. Yet, writing and painting is a learning process. Creativity does not rest with only the young. Some of us don't get our first wind until we are over sixty. I remember reading the story many years ago of a writer who published his first novel in his thirties and his second in his eighties.
"Only the work of art itself can raise the standard of taste."
"The universe is real but you can't see it. You have to imagine it. Once you imagine it, you can be realistic about reproducing it."
