Weldon Kees

"Modern society pushes people in the groove.  Although I was always interested in music and painting as well as poetry, at first I thought I had to concentrate on writing. . . one thing only.  But then the urge to paint was so strong I just went ahead and started oils.  And I didn't give up my writing — one did not exclude the other."

Weldon Kees

American Poet, Painter, Composer, Short Story Writer

1914 - 1955

As a creative leader, do you limit you creative expression to one type of art?  The common myth is that people can only do one thing.  Write poetry?  Paint portraits?  Compose music?  Write novels?  The myth is that we should focus on only one form of expression; otherwise, we will dilute our creativity not not do anything well.  We have become a society of specialists.  Painters should not write.  Writers should not play a musical instrument.  Actors should not write.

Kees believed that he could both paint and write.  "He said, "Shifting from one to the other I don't get into periods of absolute sterility that are often experienced by writers who just write, or painters who just paint."

Are you suffering from writer's block?  Pick up a paint brush and explore the world of color. Are you bored with painting?  Pick up a pen and write about your feelings.  Flipping back and forth between various art forms will keep you and your ideas fresh.

Here is a poem by Weldon Kees.

The Upstairs Room

It must have been in March the rug wore through.

Now the day passes and I stare

At warped pine boards my father's father nailed,

At the twisted grain.  Exposed, where emptiness allows,

Are the wormholes of eighty years; four generations' shoes

Stumble and scrape and fall

To the floor my father stained,

The new blood streaming from his head.  The drift

Of autumn fires and a century's cigars, that gun's

Magnanimous and brutal smoke, endure.

In March the rug was ragged as the past.  The thread

Rots like the lives we fasten on.  Now it is August,

And the floor is blank, worn smooth,

And, for my life, imperishable.

James Galvin

"Let us begin with a simple line,

Drawn as a child would draw it,

To indicate the horizon...."

— James Galvin

American Poet

1951 -

In drawing and writing, we almost always begin with the line.  The line turns into letters which turn into words which turn into sentences.  And eventually the sentences become poems, short stories and novels.  The same is often true is art.  The line becomes an eye, then a nose and soon a face.  The drawing begins as a simple line much like what a child starts with.  The artist then transforms that line into a beautiful portrait, landscape or abstract painting.

When we begin the canvas and the paper are blank, empty, without much meaning.  As creative artists our job is transform that paper or that canvas into more.  To create something out of a simple line.  To communicate our vision of the world through a simple line joined with other simple lines — one built on another.

The same can be said about life.  Each moment we live is like a simple line.  We build a life through living each moment to the fullest.  And millions of moments become a life lived.  

Here is the poem, Art Class, by James Galvin.

Art Class

By James Galvin

Let us begin with a simple line,

Drawn as a child would draw it,

To indicate the horizon,

More real than the real horizon,

Which is less than line,

Which is a visible abstraction, a ratio.

The line ravishes the page with implications

Of white earth, white sky!

The horizon moves as we move,

Making us feel central.

But the horizon is an empty shell —

Strange radius whose center is peripheral.

As the horizon draws us on, withdrawing,

The line draws us in,

Requiring further lines,

Engendering curves, verticals, diagonals,

Urging shades, shapes, figures...

What should we place, in all good faith,

On the horizon? A stone?

An empty chair? A submarine?

Take your time.  Take it easy.

The horizon will not stop abstracting us.

Patricia Highsmith

"All arts are one and each art — even ballet — is a form of storytelling."

— Patricia Highsmith

American Novelist

1921 - 1995

 

Do you agree that "all arts are one..."?  At the core, each of the arts are about creativity, about communication and about storytelling.  Whether we are talking about a painting, a dance recital, a play or a novel, we are talking about the impulse to create stories that communicate the meaning of why we are here.  Even abstract art has a story to tell if we can interpret message within the symbols.  The forms of the storytelling are very different, but the impulse that brought the forms is the same.

Do you celebrate and support other art forms?  Do you associate with artists of all stripes and shapes and genres?  Or do you stick to your small corner of the universe?  Do you only surround yourself with poets, or realistic painters, or ballet dancers, or stage actors?  We can learn much from talking with others and studying their creative processes.  We can be inspired by the works of others.

Unfortunately, in the American society, people don't always appreciate the value that the creative arts bring to a community.  Usually the arts are the first programs cut when there is a budget crunch.  The hard subjects of math and science are more important.  Yet, I believe, the arts are what make us human.  They help us create new futures and new visions.  Without the arts, life would be boring and dull.  So support your fellow artists today.

Theodore Roethke

"Being, not doing, is my first joy."

— Theodore Roethke

American Poet

1908 - 1963

 

I must confess that being is very difficult for me.  For years I have been caught up in the culture of doing.  Setting goals and working to achieve my goals.  I find it very difficult to sit and just be.  I must at the very least doodle and who knows maybe my doodles will one day be famous.  We can dream can't we!  If I go on vacation, it often takes me a week to relax and forget my day job.  But I still feel I must be doing something.  Writing.  Drawing.  Producing something.  Rarely can I just be.

How about you?  Are you caught up in the culture of doing or have you learned like Roethke to enjoy just being?

Here is my favorite Theodore Roethke poem.  I love the first three lines.  This is a poem to be read outloud.  Listen to the interaction of sounds.

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.



We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.



Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.



Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me, so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.



This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

Wendell Phillips

"Revolutions are not made: they come.  A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak.  It comes out of the past.  Its foundations are laid far back."

— Wendell Phillips

American Abolitionist, Orator, Lawyer, Author

1811- 1884

What, you might ask, do revolutions have to do with creativity?  Revolutions are a creative response to the status quo and happen at all levels of society.  Revolutions are happening in literature and art as each generation rejects the styles of previous generations.  Consider how Impressionism, Cubism and Abstract Expressionism started out as movements outside the mainstream.  

Revolutionaries have to think outside the box.  They have to be willing to see the world through new eyes.  The abolitionists stood up against slavery.  The civil rights activists stood up against segregation.  Wendell Phillips also said:  "Physical bravery is an animal instinct, moral bravery is a much higher and truer courage."  

What risks are you taking in your art?  Your writing?  Are you challenging the status quo?  Are you standing up for what is right?  Are you looking at the world with fresh eyes?  Creative leaders have to think outside the box.  They need to risk trying new techniques — new ways of thinking.

Wendell Phillips was born in Boston, Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard Law School.  He was a powerful speaker and became a voice of the anti-slavery movement.

Andre Gide

"The color of truth is gray."

Andre Gide

French Writer

1869 - 1951

Many people see the world as black and white and they quickly choose sides that give rise to conflict.  When it comes to the interactions of human beings nothing is black and white.  You can always find some gray.  Every person has some good in him as well as some bad.  Sometimes writers and artists fall into this same trap.  Only our style of art is good.  Everything else is bad.  So for much of the 20th century artists moved  away from realism and adopted cubism, abstract expressionism, surrealism and magical realism.  Realism became a negative word.  In writing, we have the literary writing and the genre writing.  Those who write mysteries, science fiction, fantasy or romance novels are not as good as the literary writers.

For me, very little truth is black and white.  Most truth, if not all, is various shades of gray.  No human has a monopoly on truth.  We all make mistakes.  I grew up in a church where the people would split over as simple things as whether men should wear clothes with buttons or the fish and hook.  The fight between the Republicans and Democrats is because each thinks they have the truth.  They actually probably agree on 95% of the issues, but they allow the five percent to divide them.  They don't see the gray because they are blinded by the black and white.

Who in your life are you separated from because you each think you have the truth?  A story does not just have one or two sides.  It has thousands of sides.  Nothing is black and white.  Everything is gray.  Break down those black and white walls today and gather those you love in your arms.

Alexander Calder

"The universe is real but you can't see it.  You have to imagine it.  Once you imagine it, you can be realistic about reproducing it."

— Alexander Calder

American Sculptor

1898 - 1976

Untitled, 1968

Centro Cultural de Belem

Lisbon, Portugal

Art and literature are created at the point where the universe meets the imagination.  The way we know the external world is through our senses.  Our minds interpret what they see, feel, hear, smell and taste and create the world we imagine to be there.  Even the most realistic painter or novelist interprets the world he sees with his imagination.  Even the most imaginative artist finds the beginning of his creation in the universe.

What is the universe that you see in your mind's eye?  What fantasies do you imagine to be real in your mind?  Art is always an interpretation of the world.  It is never the world.  It is never reality.  It is a pretend world that we believe to be true.

Adolph Gottlieb

"Painting is self-discovery.  You arrive at the image through the act of painting."

— Adolph Gottlieb

American Painter

1903 - 1974

Three Discs on Chrome Ground (1969)

Any form of creative expression is an act of self-discovery if we are observant.  What do you learn about yourself in the process of painting?  What does your writing practice teach you about your obsessions — the themes of your life?  Do you hear your soul singing in your music?  What lessons are at the heart of the stories you tell?  We create works of art in order to understand ourselves whether we are eighteen or eighty-eight.  We create in order to understand our place in the worlds we inhabit.

Ferruccio Busoni

"The function of the creative artist consists of making laws, not in following laws already made."

— Ferruccio Busoni

Italian Composer, Pianist

1866 - 1924

When I teach people how to speak, I always tell them to learn the rules of speaking, but to understand that they can break every rule.  Speaking is an art, not a science.  Creative leaders understand that there are rules and techniques governing their art, but they have the right to break the rules.  Creative leaders are willing to take a risk and attempt something that lesser artists are unwilling to risk.  If you study the long history of the arts, you will see the pattern — every generation breaks the rules of the older generations and makes new rules.  Think of the changes the impressionists, the cubists and the abstract expressionists  made to art in the last 150 years.  Think about the rules that writers and musicians have broken in the past and continue to break today.  What risks are you taking with your art?  What rules have you been willing to bend and break?  What new rules have you put in their place.  In art, nothing is absolute.