Looking Forward, Looking Back

As I'm allowing new ideas and inspirations to permeate, looking forward to spring bringing more time to create new material (and put the material I'm creating together to find form), I'm finding joyful sparks remembering wisdom from artistic giants, and retracing inquiry journeys  to help me follow my interest.

3 Reminders from Anne Bogart

What does the potential of everything look like? Feel like? 

​"We are born in terror and trembling. In the face of our terror before the uncontrollable chaos of the universe, we label as much as we can with language in the the hopes that once we have named something we no longer fear it. This labeling enables us to feel safer but also kills the mystery in what has been labeled, removing the life and danger from what has been defined. The artist's responsibility is to bring back the potential, the mystery and terror, the trembling, back." 

From A Director Prepares, the (art through) Eroticism chapter

A way of discovering what guides us as artists:

1. Something or someone stops you in your tracks
2. You feel "drawn" to it.
3. You sense its energy and power. 
4. It disorients you.
5. You make first contact.
6. You experience extended intercourse.
7. You are changed irrevocably.

On the power of creative articulation:
​
"The artist becomes the creature of the future through the violent act of articulation."

From Picasso

What did you find? What are you looking for?​

"An artist is somebody who finds something and then goes looking for it."

From Suzan-Lori Parks

On writing (and speaking) the thing you need to say:

"You should write it down because if you don't write it down then they will come along and tell the future that we did not exist. You should write it down and you should hide it under a rock." 

Photo Justin Luebke

​Remembering this Creative Inquiry:

​What drives your creative practice?
How do your practice, tools, & craft support these curiosities, drives and core values?
What questions are you asking right now in your work?
On whose shoulders do you stand?
​What questions permeate your current work?

How can following these questions lead you to your next step?
Happy inquiring, exploring and making!

XOXO, H