Scott Adams

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Art is knowing which ones to keep."

— Scott Adams

American Cartoonist

1957 -

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Marcel Duchamp

"I don't believe in art.  I believe in artists."

— Marcel Duchamp

French Artist

1887 - 1968

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.

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Hazrat Inayat Khan

"Love that ends is the shadow of love; true love is without beginning or end."

— Hazrat Inayat Khan

Indian Poet/Musician

1882 - 1927

Art is about love.  

     Love of self.  

          Love of others.  

               Love of nature.  

                    Love of God.  

Love inspires.  

     Love motivates.  

          Love transforms.  

               Love demands.  

                    Love commands.

Art is love.

     God is love.

          Love is art.

               Art is God.

                    Love is God.

Are you love?

     Are you art?

          Are you God?

               Is there a beginning?

                    Is there an end?

Remember love.

     Remember art.

          Remember God.

               Remember your name.

                    You are the beginning.

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Jacques Lipchitz

"Art is an action against death.  It is a denial of death."

— Jacques Lipchitz

Lithuanian Sculptor

1891 - 1973

Mother and Child
(1930)

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.

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Robert Mapplethorpe

Self-Portrait
(1980)

"My work is about seeing — seeing things like they haven't been seen before."

— Robert Mapplethorpe

American Photographer

1946 - 1989

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.

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Michele Cassou

"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."

— Michele Cassou

French Artist, Teacher

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.  

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Heinrich Heine

Painting of Heine
by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings."

— Heinrich Heine

German Poet

1797 - 1856

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).

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Jonathan Hull

"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.

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