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.

Henry Miller

Self-Portrait
(1943)

"Paint what you like and die happy."

— Henry Miller

American Novelist, Painter

1891 - 1980

The message here is simple and direct:  do what you like.  Too often we don't do what we like.  Nor do we learn to like what we do.  And then people become unhappy with their lives and they spend their time complaining.  Don't let others dictate what is important for you.  

And I am not telling you to run away from your spouse and children and join an artist colony where you spend every day either painting or writing.  We all have responsibilities and we should not shirk them.  If you get married, you have made a commitment and you need to live up to it.  If you bring children into this world, you have a responsibility to raise, educate and care for them.  Doing what you love does not mean avoiding your responsibilities.  Doing what you love means finding 30 minutes or 60 minutes where you do what you want to do — where you do what you love to do.  Then you can die happy.

Odani Motohiko

"I used to find that idea of an ever changing, impalpable style appealing, but now I want to concentrate on the things I ought to be doing, the things that only I can do.  The result I hope will be works that like the Buddhist statues of the past will be capable of communicating with people for centuries to come."

Odani Motohiko

Japanese Artist

1972 -

Are you doing the creative work that you ought to be doing — that only you can do?  In today's world it is easy to get sidetracked and caught up in projects that have nothing to do with our true work.  There are many people and things that demand our attention and time.  If you don't know what creative work you are supposed to be doing it is easy to get lost.  Do you have a vision of the work that you should be doing?  Do you stay focused or are you easily distracted?

Will the creative work that you are doing still be communicating to generations to come?  Or will your work be forgotten as soon as you leave this world?  No one can predict which poems, or paintings or sculptures will last for centuries and which are meant for the dustbins of time.  Many artists and writers dream and hope that their creative works will give them immortality.    

To see more of Odani Motohiko's creative work, check out this site:

www.voiceyourtemper.com/obsess-were-obsessed/artgraffiti/430-odani-motohiko-sculptures

Paul Klee

"Nothing can be rushed.  It must grow, it should grow of itself . . ."

— Paul Klee

Swiss Painter

1879 -1940

The creative process cannot be rushed or forced.  It must evolve at its own rate.  Sometimes it moves slowly and other times with the speed of light.  And the creative process cannot be managed or controlled.  It has a mind of its own.  You cannot flip a switch and suddenly be creative.  Some writers and artists have rituals they hope will invoke the creative muse to  visit them, but the rituals usually don't work.  Deadlines will not pressure the creative muse to appear.  And neither will procrastination.  The creative process takes its own sweet time.  Some take drugs hoping to break down the walls and release the imprisoned muse.  They are deluded.  

So what can we do?  Work.  And work some more.  Work when you feel creative.  Work when you feel terrible.  The key is to keep working even if what you produce is worthless.  The creative muse demands it.

Nicholas Sparks

"When you chase a dream, you learn about yourself.  You learn your capabilities and limitations, and the value of hard work and persistence."

— Nicholas Sparks

American Novelist

1965 - 

Do you have what it takes to chase a dream?  Not everyone is willing to go the distance — to pay the price that success demands.  But whether you succeed or fail, you will gain insight and understanding into yourself.  And maybe what you learn is more important than winning the race.  We all have strengths and weaknesses, capabilities and limitations.  Most people work to improve their weaknesses.  I recommend that you focus on improving your strengths.  You may work for a lifetime to fix your limitations and still not overcome them.  Better to focus your energy on perfecting your strengths.  You don't have as far to travel and the success is more rewarding.

Here is Nicholas Sparks with some tips on writing.

Laura Kasischke

"Writing is really just a matter of writing a lot, writing consistently and having faith that you'll continue to get better and better.  Sometimes people think that if they don't display great talent and have some success right away, they won't succeed.  But writing is about struggling through and learning and finding out what it is about writing itself that you really love."

— Laura Kasischke

American Novelist, Poet

1961 - 

If success comes too early, it can destroy an artist.  Early success can create writer's block.  Artists become overwhelmed by the success and stop painting.  People start enjoying their celebrity status and forget about what brought them there.  And sometimes they start believing their own press clippings.  Sometimes it is better to wait until you are emotionally ready and have the wisdom to handle it.  

If writing or painting comes too easy, people often lose interest and look for something more challenging.  If writing is a struggle, then success when it comes will be sweeter.  Have the faith to keep writing, to keep drawing or to keep painting even when there seems to be no hope of success.  

Beatrice Wood

Photo by
William Gray Harris

"Very few people know how to work.  Inspiration, everyone has inspiration, that's just hot air."

— Beatrice Wood

American Potter, Artist

1893 - 1998

I have often heard beginning writers say that they only write when they are inspired.  Unfortunately, if they wait until they are inspired, their output will be very small.  Most experienced artists and writers know they must work whether they are inspired or not.  Often when we work the inspiration will arrive on its own time and when we least expect it.  

Success comes from work.  Work when you are sad.  Work when you are happy.  Work when you don't feel like it.  Work when you want to go to a movie.  Our minds are very good at finding excuses for not working.  "I have to do the dishes."  "I have to wash the clothes."  And the list goes on.  Work takes discipline and will power.  

See writing and painting as a job that you need to show up to every day.  Since you have no boss but yourself, you have to hold yourself accountable.  Schedule your hours when you are most creative and stick to your schedule.  Maybe you write between 5 am and 6 am.  Or if you have the luxury, schedule your work hours from 8 am to 5 pm with an hour off for lunch.  Some writers write in the morning and do their research and marketing in the afternoon.  You have to find the schedule that best fits your temperament.

David Frost

"Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally."

Sir David Frost

British Journalist, Writer

1939 -

There is a paradox here.  If you seek success, you rarely find it.  If you do what you love, you will be successful even if it is not in the way that you imagined it.  As I grow older, I begin to define success less as money and fame and more as loving relationships.  The same is true of my artistic work.  It becomes less about the money and fame, then it is about the process of creating.

What is your passion?  What is your love?  Are you following your passion?  Are you doing what you love even if it is for only five minutes a day.  I dreamed for years of writing full time, but it was not to be.  But I have spent lots of hours writing.  The value is in the writing, the creating, not in doing it full time.  I challenge you to find 15 minutes every day to do what you love.  Don't wait until you can do it full time because it might never happen.  Do it now and success will follow.  Just be ready for the unexpected.  If life throws you a wrench when you are making other plans, just tighten the bolts and keep going.

Ken Patchen

"I don't consider myself to be a painter.  I think of myself as someone who has used the medium of painting in an attempt to extend — give an extra dimension to — the medium of words.  It happens very often my writing with a pen is interrupted with my writing with a brush — but I think of both as writing."

— Kenneth Patchen

American Poet, Novelist

1911 - 1972

We define ourselves with labels.  "I am a painter.  What are you?"  "I am a poet."  We are born into this world without labels and when we die, our obituaries tell the world that we were lawyers, doctors, merchants or candlestick makers.

In my profile I list many of the labels that have defined me over the years:  a carpenter, street sweeper, car hop, corn detasseler, hospital orderly, radio announcer, blogger, book editor, publisher, freelance writer, bus driver, sports writer, bookkeeper, policy and procedures writer, forms designer, marketing vice-president, corporate executive, professional speaker, facilitator, salesman, trainer, poet, storyteller, organizational development consultant, ad writer and communications executive.  And that is the short list.

What labels have you given yourself?  What labels have others given you?  Do these labels define you?  Do the labels tell the world who you are?  Do your labels limit you or expand the boundaries of who you are?  Do the labels allow others to place you in a cubbyhole?  To limit your creativity?

Do you ever judge people by their labels?  "Oh, you are just a bus driver?  A street sweeper?  A garbage collector?...."

Patchen said that he is not a painter.  He is a writer who has given an added dimension to his writing.  He has extended the boundary of the label beyond how most people define it.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Self-Portrait

(1804)

"A painter can turn pennies into gold, for all subjects are capable of being transformed into poems."

— Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

French Artist

1780 - 1867

The Valpincon Bather

(1806)

Some people believe that art is only about painting beauty.  Other people believe that writers should not write about certain subjects.   And still others seek to censor artists and writers.  Think about books that have been banned in school districts or art that is considered pornographic.  The American Library Association publishes online a list of 100 novels that have been banned from time to time.

What subjects do you avoid painting or writing about?  In what ways do you censor your own creative tendencies.  Do you paint to please others?  Do you avoid writing about certain events because it could hurt others?  How do you choose the subjects that you paint or write about?  Or does the subject choose you?  Do write about what interests you or do you write what you think the world wants to read?  Consider how many writers now write about vampires since the success of Ann Rice.  Or how many writers follow in the footsteps of the Harry Potter books.

Do you think Ingres is correct?  Can a painter can turn pennies into gold?  Can a writer make any subject poetic?  

Louise de Broglie

(1845)

Jackson Pollack

"The painting has a life of its own.  I try to let it come through."

— Jackson Pollock

American Artist

1912 - 1956

Many painters and writers talk about the work of art as having a life of its own.  For me, this is one of the joys of the creative process — that moment of discovery when I am following the story, waiting to see where it will take me.  If the creative leader gets in the way of creative process, the work of art can be disfigured, paralyzed or even still born.  Don't let your idea of the painting or the story prevent the true work of art from being born.  What is in your mind's eye may not happen on paper or canvas.




Here is the trailer of a must see Jackson Pollock movie directed by Ed Harris.

Alan Alda

"Be brave enough to live creatively.  The creative is the place where no one else has ever been.  You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.  You cannot get there by bus, only by hard work, risking and by not quite knowing what you are doing.  What you will discover will be wonderful: yourself."

— Alan Alda

American Actor, Director, Screenwriter

1936 - 

Have you visited the wilderness of your intuition?  Have you listened to the voice within your spirit?  Have you descended into the depths of your soul?  Have you discovered the nature of your existence?  Creativity is a journey of the spirit to realms not seen by the ordinary eye.  If you have been blessed with the opportunity to travel this road, then you understand the healing power within your soul.  God walks with each of us.  We must learn to decipher his voice from the chaotic noise so we may enjoy the majesty of beauty.

William Baziotes

"Each painting has its own way of evolving . . . When the painting is finished, the subject reveals itself."

— William Baziotes

American Painter

1912 - 1963

I know this is the way a poem happens for me.  I don't know what the poem is about until I'm finished writing.  The poem evolves as I write.  I know there are writers who outline everything they do.  They know what they are going to write every step of the way.  For me, it does not work.  I like not knowing.  The excitement is in the writing.  The same thing happens when I write a story.  Only at the end do I know what I was writing about.

Cyclops

(1947)

My drawing of masks is the same way.  I never know what a mask will look like until I am finished.  Art for me is also about discovery.  The joy is in the process of creation.  The joy is in not knowing where you are going.  

When I travel I am the same way.  I want to discover new places.  My wife and I once were on a trip with another couple.  They had everything planned down to the minute and became upset if we deviated from the plan because it put them behind schedule.  I can't travel that way.  The joy is in the discovery.

One of the things I have learned over the years is that writers have many different ways of working.  What works for one person does not work for another.  How do you work?  Do you map out your story in advance of writing it?  Do you know what your painting will look like before you start painting it?

Alice Neel

"I thought you had to give up a lot for art, and you did.  It required complete concentration.  It also required that whatever money you had had to be put into art materials."

— Alice Neel

American Artist

1900 - 1984

The Spanish Family (1943)

What have you had to give up in order to be able to paint, or write or play music?  Our muses can be demanding — asking us to give up relationships, friendships and even family.  And sometimes our muses will drain our spirit and leave us battered and lifeless.  Art requires the artist to be faithful and loyal.   Art demands that we work hard, often with little or no respect, money or fame.  We labor on day and night hoping that one day someone will discover us.  Sometimes we hurt those we love.  We sacrifice our family on the altar of creativity.  And for what?  The hope that maybe one day someone will notice.  It takes a lot of courage to be an artist.  To be willing to sacrifice so much.  For some of us, we sacrifice our sanity or even our lives.  

And yet, I think there is another way.  We can find balance in our lives.  We don't have to sacrifice everything.  We can maintain our sanity without falling off the cliff.  Don't let the creative impulse destroy you.  Be strong.  Find a way to balance the wild and crazy spirit with the routines of daily living.  Maybe you can knit, take up yoga, play golf or simply take a walk.  Embrace the whole you, not just the creative side.  Anything taken to the extreme is destructive.

Jim Rohn

"Dreams get you started; discipline keeps you going."

— Jim Rohn

American Author / Motivational Speaker

1930 - 2009

We all have dreams and most of us never act on our dreams.  We find excuses and reasons why we can't do something.  We focus on all the obstacles we see in front of us.  Dreams may inspire us to act for a day or two, but it takes discipline to keep writing and painting.  And this goes for successful writers and painters as well as beginners.  I have read stories of successful writers and painters who stop working.  The first book or two made them a celebrity and they never finish the next book.  They get caught up in the celebrity of being a writer.  Being a creative leader requires discipline to sit down at the computer, to stand at that easel, or to sit at the piano.  

Do you have the discipline to accomplish your dreams?  Do you rise before everyone in your family so that you can spend an hour or two working on your art?  Or do you stay up after everyone else has gone to bed?  Do you do what many others only dream about?  Discipline is key to your success.

Milton Berle

"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door."

—  Milton Berle

American Comedian & Actor

1908 - 2002

Many times we have to make our own opportunities.  People often complain that they were not given a chance.  They fall into "If Only" thinking: "If only I could have gone to school."  "If only my boss would have promoted me."  "If only my parents loved me."  If only. . . . If only. . . .  If only. . . .  If you are going to achieve your dreams and accomplish your goals, you must move beyond "If Only" thinking to "Opportunity" thinking.  You must build your own doors and knock on them.

What doors can you build today that you can knock on tomorrow?  Building the door to opportunity does not just happen by accident.  It takes hard work, belief in oneself and persistence.

Gail Godwin

"Within the last year I have discovered I can compose whole paragraphs in my head and find them waiting, intact, next morning."

— Gail Godwin

American Novelist

1937 - 

Our minds are very powerful and capable of doing more than we imagine.  In a recent New York Times Book Review essay on the lives of aging writers, Godwin, 73, tells us that she is now able to compose paragraphs in her mind and retain them — something she was unable to do in her youth.  She remembers as a young writer hearing Jorge Luis Borges tell his audience at the Iowa Writer's Workshop that blindness taught him to compose his stories in his head.  I know of poets who compose poems in their minds and are able to recite them from memory.

Many young writers and artists feel that if they are not successful by the time they turn forty, they have failed.  Yet, writing and painting is a learning process.  Creativity does not rest with only the young.  Some of us don't get our first wind until we are over sixty.  I remember reading the story many years ago of a writer who published his first novel in his thirties and his second in his eighties.

While Gail Godwin is best known for her thirteen novels, she has also composed music with Robert Starer and keeps colored pencils at her bedside.  On her website Godwin says that she will often draw before she goes to sleep.  She says: "I also draw when I am baffled by some aspect of the character.  Making a visual image of that character in action almost always reveals something new."

Martin Luther King Jr.

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry.  He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'"

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

American Civil Rights Leader/Preacher/Author

1929 - 1968

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

One of those games we play is:  "Where were you when . . ."  On April 4, 1968, I was a nineteen year old college student at Goshen College in Indiana.  Two months earlier I had the privilege of marching with Dr. King at a Vietnam War protest march in Washington D.C. The murder of Dr. King on my birthday in 1968 impacted me both emotionally and spiritually.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

For the past twenty years I have been sharing this quote by Dr. King in my speeches on leadership.  I believe that work is spiritual in nature.  The work we do helps to cleanse our souls and free our spirits.  Many people see work as a negative condition.  They hate Mondays and grumble about having to go to work.  Many people wish they did not have to work.  But if you have ever lost a job and sat idle for a few months, you appreciate the value of work in your life.

As creative leaders we have a special opportunity to share the fruit of our labor with others. Most of my life I have dreamed of being able to give up my bill-paying job and write full time.  Fortunately, this never happened.  I think I am a better person for having the discipline to get up an hour earlier than everyone and writing before going to work.  Sometimes what we wish for is not in our best interests.  The bill-paying work and the creative work are both important and both have helped to make me a better person.

Be proud of the work you do.  Celebrate the work you do.  Be happy with the gifts 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.