Consuming words rather than images

On a rare occasion I feel like I get overloaded with imagery to the point that I become numb to sights that would have left me sighing and my heart thumping just a week ago. So, I'm trying to take a break, a vacation, from Pinterest, Etsy, Flickr, Blogs, etc. It's not easy. That's a lot of time and room in my brain to fill up. 


On the other hand, I have been craving words. Luckily for me, my husband prophetically gave me a book for mother's day which I'm trying hard not to devour in one giant gulp. It's called, If You Want to Write: A book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland.   It first appeared on bookshelves in the late 1930s and has inspired generations and while it appears to speak to writing specifically, in truth it's about all kinds of creativity because it's all related.


I thought I would share a little from the first chapter.  (paraphrased except where indicated)

Everybody is original:

If one speaks from themselves and not who they should be, they are an original. This is important because self-trust is one of the most important ingredient in creativity.

Creative power and imagination is in everyone, as is the need to express and share it. But, it often disappears sometime in our growing up. How?

"...we let dry obligation take its place; because we don't respect it in ourselves and keep it alive by using it; and because we don't keep it alive in others by listening to them." p.11

"...the only way to love a person is by listening to them and seeing and believing...in the poet in them... by doing this, you keep...the poet alive and allow it flourish." p. 11

Critics undermine us because:

 "...all people who try to write [be creative] (and all people long to, which is natural and right) become anxious, timid, contracted become perfectionists, so terribly afraid that they may put something down that is not as good as Shakespeare." p.12

"It is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the very first ones to get killed off. It is the brutal egoists that survive." p. 13

Her advice:

"...you must practice not perfunctorily, but with all your intelligence and love.... Work freely and rollickingly as though talking to a friend who loves you. Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at the know-it-alls, jeers, critics, doubters." p. 14

I think what I like most about this book so far is that it is helping to confirm some very basic, deeply originating beliefs that have been part of me since the beginning of time, but which I call into doubt on occasion.  Those beliefs are that everyone is original, that we all have something to say, and that we are all creative beings who often forget that fact. 


Color me inspired. How about you?

accidental logos

 I wasn't meaning to make anything like a logo when I started down this path, but that's what it wanted to be. I doubt I would ever use them as such because they are a little (forgive my word usage) ballsy for BAC, but I like them nonetheless. Maybe BAC is going toward the ballsy. I don't know. She doesn't regularly consult with me. 

Monumental

I wish I had any kind of words for what happens to me when I see mountains. They are such a monumental symbol of all that I love about nature; both serene and deadly, unmoving and ever changing, home and stranger. I think I'd like to be one someday. 

In my head

I've been working on aspects of this piece for a while now...

As I was sending it to Flickr I began a description that ended up like this...

I have a crush on square crosses, especially the red ones. I think they harken back to a time when I loved to watch MASH as a child, and had complex, very serious thoughts about war. Such a thinker I was.
But, I also think I respond to the harmony of the shape itself... the symmetry, the balance, the simplicity and strength.
All that coupled with the idea of care (medical), in a time of insanity and cruelty (war) is an irresistible contradiction who's offspring is called hope... I can't resist that. 

I had no idea any of that was in my head. I love it when that happens.  

Thank you technology.

I haven't been visiting Flickr very often over the last year or so. No real reason really.. just part of the ebb and flow of my attention span. But today I uploaded a few things and poked around my contacts gallery for a bit. 

With fresh eyes, it suddenly hit me hard and clear, that this is nothing less than an abundant celebration of life. Whether it be tree, rock, child, cloth, graphic, paint, body, sky, light, dark, sad, happy... it's all such a pounding, throbbing, screaming declaration of love for life. 

Passion is what I love most about creative folks, and I'm astounded at their ability to communicate such deep, rich, profound emotion in pixels and light. 

My husband and I were recently discussing the relative merits of the online world for those of us who happen to be introverts (of which he and I are two ripe examples), and it helped to clarify for me why I get so uncomfortable when I hear folks lamenting the dangers of an "artificial" connection to others via the computer. My flickr contact gallery is a prime example of why I think the online, artistic, creative, community is so valuable. There I am inspired not only to own and nurture my own artistic development, but my development as a human being. 

Pretty pictures can be a pitfall of unrealistic expectation for one's life, since life is utterly messy and pretty pictures are not. But, if one can firmly plant one's feet to the ground and realize that pretty pictures are the lens through which to view the world, we find we choices. Divorce, loss, finances, stress can all be real and difficult, and noticing the way light passes through a glass or water, or how beautiful even a weed can be doesn't change that difficulty. It does, however, give us a wider context, a focus on what is right along what is wrong in our lives. Without the online creative community, without Flickr, Etsy, Pinterest, etc., I for one would be missing so much beauty and so many reminders to find the beauty in the "real" world. 

So, thank you technology, for making my life richer, deeper, wider, more passionate, more rooted in the world around me, in the earth and dirt and nature that gradually gave rise to you. Thank you, in all your artificiality, for bringing me closer to the natural, the actual, the literal... for being the lens through which I discovered a world, outside your magic screen, that I never would have known existed.... and a me that I thought quite impossible. Thanks computer, and everyone who ever contributed to you.

I think we will be alright. I think we know how to stay human no matter how much technology we surround ourselves with. I think we know, in our cells, what's most important... and those who don't, probably never would have... regardless of what happens to sit on their desk. 

Crushing hard...

...on my CS5 software (Adobe Creative Suite, mostly Illustrator and Photoshop)

mas logo

This could become habit forming....

logo

I've been playing around with the idea of a bac logo for a few weeks now and I have the first prototypes finished.

What do you think?

new lessons

One of the most important things I'm learning right now about product photography has nothing at all to do with styling or shooting, but with the way my mind works. I get excited when I'm getting ready to shoot. I whip out the product and props and start manically throwing stuff together and clicking away. This can be an effective approach to painting or any other more directly expressive art form. But, as I'm finding, tis not all that productive for what I'm doing now. Thought is key. Deliberation and consideration are necessary. These are not things at which I excel, at least where creativity is concerned. But really, what is life if not a process of learning. And learning the tether that kind of controlled chaos, while still responding the golden nugets of inspiration that lay within, could have great side effects in the rest of my life. It might be nice not to be as intense as all that so often, so long as it doesn't mean I have to give up coffee. 

                         

This blog post (from averie cooks about a workshop done by 

Diane Cu) has helped me get to this new lesson. Talk about golden nugets of wisdom. 

The other important thing I learned there.... 

Practice!....practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice and then practice some more. 

I miss...

...taking pictures of whatever I happen to notice, just for the sheer joy of it. Soon, I will be getting back to that.