When creative engines warm up, a need for expression abounds. Do you wait until the time is right to write, play music, paint, create art; or drop out of daily life and focus on the magic only you can make?
See also:
Personally, it's impossible to live a life outside art. Art to me means writing, painting, music, sculpture, singing, poetry, video, installation, crafting, dance, fabric art, creative endeavors of all kinds. In younger years I tried to separate daily life from art and learned art is life, and the need for expression prevails.
Sylvia Rose Books on Smashwords
Sylvia Rose Art on Zazzle
Reiker For Hire Murder Mysteries
Years ago I walked out in the middle of a university class after seeing a picture of Rudolf Nureyev's feet in a magazine. The class had nothing to do with Nureyev, ballet or feet, it was a German translation course - but at that moment a wave of dizziness crashed through me and all I could hear was nonsensical babble.
"Gotta go," I said, and fielding questions ran from the room. For the rest of the night I wrote poetry. Of course, Nureyev's feet are nothing like those of the average person. An amazing dancer, he had muscles on his muscles in toes and ankles and soles of the feet.
See also:
This is the effect of years and years of practice and dance, the mark of a unique talent, a masterful artist. This is what inspired me. Knowing the life of this man brought a passionate flood of emotion with the inspiration, and the insistent need to immortalize the feeling in poetry.
One late night, on a city street, I'm broke and tired and deep in despair. Life threw lemons and they're too rotten for lemonade. Medical anxiety and depression conditions hit hard and my head's a mess.
I look into a lit-up store window and it's bare but for three white wooden box stands and a little battered white door at back. I abruptly stop and cannot stop staring. It's the most beautiful thing I've seen all day, the random arrangement of angles and light and the anomaly of the little door. So I went off and made art. Depression? Gone. Not always so easy, but that's what happened.
These strangely emotional events occurred when still trying to get employable skills (besides working as waitress to cover the cost of art), and keeping my art work separate from other aspects of life. I come from a family of non-believers, that is, you can't make money from art, unless you're Robert Bateman, and the most important goal was money.
See also:
Confused the heck out of me. Artistic expression, emotion and love of life were much more valuable than bits of paper which smelled bad (ie money, in the olden days). So, I'd end up living on a jumbo sized box of stale corn flakes for a week rather than run out of cadmium red light.
Sylvia Rose Books on Smashwords
Sylvia Rose Art on Zazzle
Reiker For Hire Murder Mysteries
Used to pawn my portable typewriter for $10 when I was really broke. Always bought it back again, though. And honestly, the thing wasn't worth $10. The shop owner was just being nice.
Join me on:
Nowadays I can think about these things and smile, because after all the anxiety and all-nighters and self-doubt and obsession, this is what I learned:
Yes, you can make money from art (ie writing, painting, singing, dancing, playing music, acting, wherever the love is found). I allowed negative people to hold me back. Don't do that.
Art is life, and artists just have to live with it. Channeling one's passions into a corner while trying to multi-task a "regular life" is like living two lives and succeeding in neither.
Living a creative life doesn't happen overnight. It takes time because the human brain and most of society love to stick everything into categories or compartments, and even formalist art doesn't flow that way. Take a glance at this beautiful work by Louise Nevelson.
Your art is your expression, whether it's painting, playing, singing, sculpting, writing, theater. If one day, after many years of hard labor and harder choices, you look around yourself, and all you see is art - then the truth is clear.