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Creativity, Coming & Going
Have you noticed how many creatives have particularly fertile periods of output – times of especially high levels of creativity? Why is that? How do you call the muse? Can you even call it? Why does it appear to fall away? Can you keep it? What is inspiration? Too many questions! For any creative, there are times of heightened connection/awareness of the muse. It’s always best to jump on an idea when it’s fresh. That visit is a combination of time and circumstance – two things which by definition are never exactly replicable. Therefore you must jump, before the time and circumstance take you out of the mindset, the inspiration,…
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What is the Connection between God and Creativity?
This is the first of 7 blogs on releasing your creative potential. What does God think about artists? Does he care? Does he even notice? If everything was right, if we could clearly see the brushstrokes on the canvas of the created world, then the first words of the Bible would inspire endless creativity, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
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The End of All Things
According to a well-known evangelist, the world was supposed to end today. Thought I’d riff on that concept… Molten lava flows by; fireballs hurl hundreds of feet through the air. Resting on a rock, awaiting the inevitable, Frodo says, “I’m glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee, here at the end of all things.” (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) Time collapses; the world fades. Suddenly the eagles arrive. They are unheralded, unexpected. They pick up Frodo and Sam and carry them home to safety. This is not unlike what artists feel when they are struggling. Everything around them seems to be falling apart and it…
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Don’t Give Up
To the artist… If you’re lucky you’ll live long enough to see the seed of your work planted. You may even see it die. Truly fortunate, you’ll see it raised.
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A Realm for Which the Soul Aches
“The task of the artist is to sense more keenly than others the harmony of the world, the beauty and the outrage of what man has done to it, and poignantly, to let people know. Art warms even an icy and depressed heart, opening it to lofty, personal experience. By means of art we are sometimes sent dimly, briefly, revelations unattainable by reason, like that little mirror in the fairy tales. Look into it and you will see not yourself but for a moment, that which passes understanding, a realm to which no man can ride or fly and for which the soul begins to ache.” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn, quoted…
