a creative life
Living a creative life has nothing to do with what you do for a living. Because what you do for a living rarely has anything to do with the way you live. It's just the way you keep the lights on and the water running. It’s the way you cover rent. It's the way you pay your bills.
A creative life is what you do when no one is watching. Late at night. Early in the morning. After everyone goes to bed. Before you go to work.
It's the notebook you scrawl yourself across at every opportunity. It's every sketch kept and all the ones you throw away. It's the incalculable minutes spent with oils and acrylics. It's the writing and the poetry. The scissors and the glue. It's the essence of everything you are, kneaded into something you need more than anything. Something you love more than the world.
You don't ever have to publish a book or sell a painting to live a creative life. You just have to have something to pour your life into. A creative life is the accumulation of days and hours you spend doing the work of making your soul grow.
P.S. ICAD - Day 48-51
P.P.S. My friend and artist Stephen Tomasko (on IG here) sent me another Open Call recently. The theme for this one is Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It was an interesting challenge to represent the spirit or essence of this in collage form, but here’s what I came up with. Let me know what you think.
Duane, the Ikebana piece must have been a good creative challenge for you. I see Grace (birds), Silence (wall), and Time (sky) woven into this one. The orange-red, charcoal & blue makes my retinas happy!
Lovely words and work, as always. The line about doing the work to make your soul grow really resonated with me! It's a great way to explain what we're doing in the studio all of those hours where it seems like we're just sitting around!