Jim Dine

Self-Portrait in Cambridge #4
(1979)

"I work every day.  I work all day.  I've never had a holiday.  It's all I really want to do.  It's what I'm here for. . . . More and more, I'm just so grateful I was born an artist."

— Jim Dine

American Artist

1935 -

Are you grateful that you were born an artist, a creative leader?  Do you appreciate the gifts of creativity that you have been given?  It is a privilege to be an artist — to have the opportunity to create works of art.  Give thanks every day for what you have been given.

What are your work habits?  Do you enjoy working?  Do you do some work every day?  An artist is always working?  He may not have a brush or pen in hand, but his mind never stops.  Everything he sees and hears goes into his creative subconscious and eventually finds its way into the creative work.  Celebrate the work.  Give thanks for the opportunity to work.

Cynthia Ozick

"We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude."

— Cynthia Ozick

American Novelist

1928 -

Are you thankful for the abilities, talents and gifts that you have?  The gift of sight is something that many of us take for granted on most days and yet without it our lives would be dramatically altered.  Our ability to see allows us to navigate the world in which we live and gives us the opportunity to go where we want without assistance.  Writing that novel or painting that canvas would be much more difficult if you could not see.  You would not be able to read a book unless you learned Braille or listened to books.  You would not be able to see the faces of those you love.  Give thanks for your ability to see every day.




Are you thankful for your ability to hear?  What would your life be like if you were deaf?  You would not be able to listen to music or hear the words, "I love you."  Yes, you still should be able to write that great novel or paint that masterpiece, but you would miss out on much that happens around you.  You wouldn't hear the birds singing in the morning or the wind in the trees or the rain falling.  Be thankful that you still have your ability to hear.




Life gives us so many challenges and difficulties that we often lose sight of what we have.  We become lost in all the things we don't have.  We are unhappy because we have not published a novel or sold a painting.  We wish we were rich and famous.  Life is so precious.  We should be happy that we awoke this morning and are still above ground.  We should be happy that people love us and care for us.




Learn to develop an attitude of gratitude.  Give thanks every day for the gifts you have been given.   I challenge you sit down right now and write down ten things that your are grateful for.  Post them to this blog if you would like to share.




Here is a video of Ozick discussing her life and writing.

Harley King

Self-Portrait

Oil Pastels

(2011)

"Sometimes we fight who we are, struggling against ourselves and our natures.  But we must learn to accept who we are and appreciate who we become.  We must love ourselves for what and who we are, and believe in our talents."

— Harley King

American Poet, Speaker

1949 - 

I have struggled much of my life to find myself and my place in this world.  I have never been satisfied, always wanting to do more, to accomplish more.  I wanted to be a famous writer.  But instead, my success came through my speaking.  While I have published 14 books, my readership is small and my paycheck is even smaller.  Yet, somewhere a long the way I learned to accept who I am and to trust that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.  I touch people's lives with my words.  

I wrote the words above when I turned fifty.  Today I turn 62 and I feel that I have learned not to struggle against myself, and have accepted who I am as well as my strengths and limitations.  I have learned to hug myself and to love who I am.

Have you learned to love yourself and to believe in your talents?  Do you appreciate the life you live and accept your strengths and weaknesses?  None of us are perfect and the lives we lead are not perfect, but we are leading the life we have chosen through our thoughts and actions.  




Here is a link to my reading of my poem, Indecision, inspired by the Renoir painting, Umbrellas.  Click on Indecision and it will take you to a page on my website.

Marian Wright Edelman

"Remember your roots, your history, and the forebearers' shoulders on which you stand.  And pass these roots on to your children and to other children."

— Marian Wright Edelman

American Author and

Founder, Children's Defense Fund

1939 - 

As writers, artists, dancers and actors, we need to know our roots, our history and the people on whose shoulders we stand.  To whom do we owe a deep debt of gratitude for paving the way.  Who are your mentors?  Those who have taught you about your profession?  Have you said thank you?

And have you passed on your knowledge onto others?  Have you been a teacher or a mentor?  Do you readily share your knowledge or do you keep your knowledge hidden?  Age and years of experience do not matter.  Even the novice has something to teach the master.  Any master who does not feel he can still learn something is not a true master.  We all must be open to new experiences and new ways of thinking.

This quote also applies to our family history.  On whose shoulders do you stand?  Were you like me to be the first in your family to attend college?  To whom do you owe thanks for who you became.  Without your parents, your grandparents or your great-grand parents, you would not be here.  Do you know your family history?  Have you collected your family stories?  Have you passed those stories onto your children and your grandchildren?

Mother Teresa

"It is not what we do, it is how much love we put in the doing."

— Mother Teresa

Catholic Nun

1910 - 1997

Do you put love into what you do?  As creative leaders we should love the process of creating.  The more love we put into our work; the more creative the end product is.  If you don't enjoy the process, then why do you do it?  Are you doing it for the wrong reasons?  For money?  For fame?  For sex?

Some writers and artists struggle to produce work.  I once read about a writer who published his first novel in his thirties and didn't publish his second until he was in his eighties.  For some people the creative process is difficult work.  I suggest you put love into your work and you might find it more enjoyable and less painful.  The journey we take is often more important than the destination.  We find out who we are and why we are here through the process of creating.  

The process of creating is a form of prayer — a connection to a power beyond ourselves, to a purpose bigger than us.  When we lose connection with this creative force, we stumble and struggle to create.  Writers and painters both talk about being in the flow — of something greater than themselves actually taking control and doing the creating.  They are only the instrument in the hands of the creative force.  They connect through love.

Bernie Siegel

"In the face of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope."

Bernie Siegel

American Author / Physician

As a young writer hope is one of the few things that kept me going.  I would read a story about someone who was 50 or 60 or 7o and he had just published his first novel.  After years of toiling in the salt mines of writing, he found success.  These stories inspired me to keep writing.  I had hope that one day I would be discovered and become successful.  Even today I have that sense of hope, that belief that one day I will be proved right.  Yes, I am a writer.

When we lose hope, we give up on life.  We quit.  Some days all we have is hope.  As the old saying goes: every dark cloud as a silver lining.  We just have to find it — to look at the world with new eyes.  No matter how dark the night, there is always a sunrise.  Everyone faces challenges and difficulties.  The sad thing for me is people who see no way out of a problem but to take their own lives.  Never give up hope for a better tomorrow.

As creative thinkers, we need hope.  We need to believe in ourselves, our ideas, our art.  Have faith that you have been given a gift.  Have faith in your dreams.  Have faith that the sun will rise again.

Christina Baldwin

"The reason I spend thousands of lifetime hours creating something 99 percent of which no one else is likely to ever read is that writing itself is the gift."

— Christina Baldwin

American Author/Speaker

1946 - 

Sometimes as writers we become caught up in the business of publishing and experience the hurt and pain of rejection.  We become frustrated and sometimes quit writing because we don't think we are good enough.  The need to write, to express ourselves, is not about being published.  The need to write and to create is a gift in itself.  Celebrate and honor the gift you have been given.  Write for the sake of writing.

The same can be said of painting and any of the other forms of creative expression.  Painting is not about selling your art to the highest bidder or having your painting hang in a museum somewhere.  Painting is a gift to be honored and treasured.  Respect and appreciate the gift that you have been given.

J. C. Penny

James Cash Penny

founder of J. C. Penny

"I am grateful for all of my problems.  After each one was overcome, I became stronger and more able to meet those that were still to come.  I grew in all my difficulties."

— James Cash Penny

American Businessman 

1875 - 1971

What problems are you grateful for?  We all face challenges in our lives and we sometimes let these challenges affect us emotionally and psychologically.  We need to learn to be thankful for the gifts hidden within the problems.  Every problem we face has something to teach us, something to give us.  Creative leaders face problems and challenges in their personal and financial lives like everyone else.  The difference is that we have been given the gift of creativity.  Don't just use your gift for your art.  Use it to solve the problems in your life.

James Cash Penny, age 27

In 1898 at the age of 23 James Cash Penny went to work for a small chain of retail stores.  Four years later, he was offered a third ownership in one store for which he paid $2,000 dollars.  In 1907, he bought and owned three stores.  By 1912 he owned 34 stores.  In 1913 at the age of 38, he incorporated his business under the name of J. C. Penny.  By 1929 the company had 1,400 stores.  The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression left James Cash Penny in financial ruin.  He borrowed against the cash value of his life insurance policies to pay the payroll in his stores.  The financial setbacks took a toll on his health and he checked himself into a sanitarium.  He later recovered emotionally and financially and spent the rest of his life involved in charitable works.

What challenges are you facing today?  What changes can you make in your life that will help you solve these problems?  The problems we face are gifts that can make us stronger and better artists and writers.  Be thankful that you have an opportunity to learn and grow into a better person.

Viktor Emil Frankl

"Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude."

Viktor Emil Frankl

Austrian Psychiatrist/Writer

1905 - 1997

I believe that everything in life is a choice.  We choose how we get up in the morning.  We choose how we go to work.  We choose our attitudes.  I believe we have little or no control over what happens to us.  We can be in a car accident, be diagnosed with cancer or get fired from our job.  We have no control over preventing these things from happening.  The only thing we have control over is how we respond to what happens to us.  We have 100% control of our attitude.  As Frankl says, we have the freedom to choose our attitude.

What is your attitude to your life?  Your art?  What is your attitude to the people around you? Do you choose to be optimistic and positive?  Or are you grouchy?  Discouraged?  Negative?  Are you always finding fault with people and the world around you?  Do continually make sarcastic comments and put people down?  Or do you look for the good in people?  Even the worst of people have some good in them.  

As creative leaders we choose our attitudes.  Choose today to be positive, dedicated and inspiring.  Choose to find the silver lining in every dark cloud.  Choose to be a better you.  And then you will be a better artist.

Maya Angelou

"If you don't like something, change it.  If you can't change it, change your attitude.  Don't complain."

— Maya Angelou

American Poet/Writer

1928 -

One of the easiest things to do is to criticize, to complain, to find fault.  It is a trap that many creative people fall into.  The world doesn't always recognized our creative genius so we put others down.  Complaining becomes our defense mechanism, the way to protect ourselves from the onslaught of the world around us.  What we need to learn is that complaining is not productive.  It does not help us create great works of art.  If we don't like something about the world, we need to either change it or change ourselves.  And what I have found over the years is that it is much easier to change yourself than it is to change those around you and it requires a lot less energy and time.

So ask yourself: "What did I complain about yesterday?" Then ask yourself if you can change it and if not, then change your attitude."  I teach people that they have little or no control on what happens to them.  The only thing they have 100 percent control of is their attitude.  If you don't like where you live, then change your attitude.  If you don't like your boss, then change your attitude.  We need to develop an attitude of gratitude.  We need to appreciate what we have, not complain about what we don't have.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them: character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas."

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Russian Novelist

1821 - 1881

Think of the stories you have heard of intelligent, educated people who have done evil things.  Intelligence and even education do not make us good people.  It is what is in the heart that matters most.  Are you caring, compassionate and generous?  Your character and nature will show through.  That which lives in your heart will be visible in your art.  

Robert Frost

"A poem . . . begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. . . . It finds the thought and the thought finds the words."

Robert Frost

American Poet

1874 - 1963

Does your art grow out of your emotions?  How often does your pain find expression in your painting, your poem or your story?  Does your joy find the words to express itself?  Many times we forget the original emotion that triggered the thought that ultimately finds its expression in our art.  Some art begins in anger, some in love.  And if we paint or write well, our audience feels the emotion.  




Here is my favorite Frost poem.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I marked the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Eric Hoffer

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."

— Eric Hoffer

American Philosopher/Writer

1902 - 1983

We should give thanks daily for the gifts that we have been given.  The world we live in can be a difficult, negative place and yet we must find a way to celebrate the positive, to believe in that which is good and precious.  As creative leaders our gifts and talents are many.  I am thankful that I can type, that I can read, that I can write, that I can create.  Sometimes it is the small things that are most important.  

Give thanks for what you have been given.  Develop an attitude of gratitude.  Every day write down ten things for which you are grateful.  The choice is yours.  Focus on what you have, not what you don't have.  Don't like that picture you painted?  Don't think you have much skill in drawing?  Don't despair.  Focus on your talent for color or your insight into human nature.  Honor the gifts that you have.  Appreciate your strengths. Celebrate life.  

Alice Walker

"Don't wait around for other people to be happy for you.  Any happiness you get you've got to make yourself."

— Alice Walker

American Novelist/Poet

1944 - 

The appreciation and support of others may be short-lived and fickle.  We need to believe in ourselves and our work.  Our happiness and satisfaction must come from within.  We must learn to care for ourselves and encourage our artistic work.  The world may not understand what we do or why we do it, but we must find the inner strength to keep going.  Pat yourself on the back today and give yourself a compliment.

J. B. Massieu

"Gratitude is the memory of the heart."

— J. B. Massieu

1743 - 1818

This quote says it all.  Have you expressed appreciation and gratitude to someone today?  We should be thankful for what we have been given.  And give thanks each and every day for our blessings.  Thank someone in your life today.