Alexandre Hogue

Dust Bowl
(1933)

"I was raised on a ranch in the Dust Bowl and I was there when the dust storm hit . . . . To me, as an artist, it was beautiful in a terrifying way.  I painted it for that terrifying beauty."

Alexandre Hogue

American Painter

1898 - 1994

Erosion No. 2 Mother Earth Laid Bare
1936

Sometimes our subject matter chooses us.  The events of the times we live in impact and change our creative output.  The subjects we choose to paint or write about are found in the world around us.  Those who have experienced war as a civilian or soldier will bring that experience to their paintings and writings.  Those who experience the violent wrath of Mother Nature will be drawn to paint those images.  How much has your creative work been influenced by the times in which you live?  

My writing has been influenced and impacted by the fact that I lived through the turbulent 1960's from the protest marches to the hippies.  I experienced the death of God movement and the rise of Black Power.  I lived through the decade that saw the assassinations  of John, Bobby and Martin.  To some extent I am a child of the times and that is reflected in my art and whom I have become as a person.

What external forces have shaped your art and given it focus and meaning?  For some the first decade of the 21st century will define their art and who they become.  For some global warming and the extreme weather conditions will define their art.  To some extent, we are all products of our times.  

The Crucified Land
(1939)

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Dorothy Dunnett

"Facts are the soil from which the story grows.  Imagination is a last resort."

Dorothy Dunnett

Scottish Novelist, Portrait Painter

1923 - 2001

A story should be rooted in reality.  The reader needs to be able to relate the characters to the world that he knows.  Consider the novel, Watership Down, by Richard Adams.  The story is about rabbits and yet, we identify with them because of their human characteristics.  Dorothy Dunnett was a writer of historical novels who did immense research to place her stories in historical reality.  But facts are never enough.  It is in the imagination that the story takes wings and flies far from the facts to spin a story that touches the minds and hearts of the readers.

Have you rooted your stories in the reality?  Have you used your imagination to carry the stories to the heavens?  How about your paintings?  Is there something in the work with which we can identify?  Does the painting carry us beyond the facts into another world?

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Morihei Ueshiba

"Your heart is full of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout."

— Morihei Ueshiba

Founder of Aikido

Japanese Writer

1883 - 1969

Each of us is full of potential.  If you have within your heart the desire to create music, paintings, stories or poems, you also have within your heart the seeds of those paintings, songs, poems and stories.  The flowering of these seeds also depends on the soil in which they are planted.  Is it rich, fertile soil?  Or rocky, barren soil?  The amount of rain and sunshine is also important.

Is your heart ready to grow the paintings you are destined to paint?  Or the poems you are destined to write?  Or the stories you are destined to tell?  Only you can nurture the seeds within your heart.  Only you can pick the fruit from the trees your heart will grow.  Your creativity is a gift.  Are you using it wisely?  Or have you hidden it from others?  The choice is yours.

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Harold S. Kushner

"If we put our soul into our work, if, rather than just going through the motions, what we do flows from the deepest part of our being, then after a burst of creativity, we need to replenish our souls."

— Harold S. Kushner

American Rabbi, Author

1935 -

Sometimes we need to rest — to replenish our spirit.  We cannot work all the time.  How do you replenish your spirit — restore your energy?  Exercise?  Walking?  Reading?  Visiting friends?  Loafing?  Good farmers know the importance of leaving a field fallow so as to restore the nutrients in the soil.  How do you restore the nutrients in your soul?  Do you take the time to be with yourself without the noise and chaos of the world in which you live?  Do you spend time with your soul in meditation and prayer?  Have you learned how to relax — to slow the pace of your life?  Take time today to pause for a few minutes and listen to the spirit within your flesh.  Find comfort in the small acts like the dance of a child, the breeze in the trees, the scampering of a squirrel or the hug of a friend?  Gently love the world in which you find yourself.

Harold S. Kushner wrote a book, The Lord Is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-Third Psalm, in which he meditates on the meaning of the twenty-third psalm.  The words I quoted above come from the chapter entitled: He Restoreth My Soul.  Kushner tells the story of a group of people who were on safari in Africa and hired porters to carry their supplies.  After three days the porters insisted on stopping for a day to rest.  The porters claimed that they were stopping not because they were tired, but because they had walked too far too fast and they needed time for their souls to catch up.  Have you traveled too fast and left your soul too far behind?  Do you need to wait for your soul to catch up?

As a speaker, I travel a lot — both by car and by plane.  I am currently in the midst of five weeks of travel.  Every time I return home, it takes me a day or two to renew my spirit and allow my soul to catch up.  And sometimes I feel like my soul does not catch up with my body before I am back on the road chasing the tiger.  In my case, my writing of poetry helps my soul to find its way back to the body and restore my sense of who I am.  







The Twenty-Third Psalm




The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul.

He guides me in straight paths for His Name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil

For Thou are with me.

Thy rod and Thy Staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

Thou anointest my head with oil,

My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

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Beverly Pepper

Alpha

"I go to my studio every day.  Some days work comes easily.  Other days nothing happens.  Yet on the good days the inspiration is only an accumulation of all the other days, the nonproductive ones."

— Beverly Pepper

American Artist

1922 -

Horizontal Twist Vision 1
(2008)

Farmers understand that they have to leave the fields fallow some years.  The soil needs a rest and an opportunity to rebuild itself.  If they planted corn every year, they would deplete the soil of its nutrients eventually.  Artists, writers and creative leaders are going to have good days and bad days.  The bad days are a way of restoring the creative energies to our spirit — of making us whole again.  Work every day but understand that some days you will be producing weeds and other days you will harvest the corn.

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