In the words of Marlene Dumas: I paint because I am a woman. (It’s a logical necessity.) If painting is female and insanity is a female malady, then all women painters are mad and all male painters are women. I paint because I am an artificial blonde woman. (Brunettes have no excuse.) If all good […]
Art
- Art Making
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Keeping Your Head Down
Do not depend on the hope of results…you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to that you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results […]
Craving the Lightning
A few lines to remember during those times when things don’t seem to be coming together: I haven’t written a single poem in months. I’ve lived humbly, reading the paper, pondering the riddle of power and the reasons for obedience. I’ve watched sunsets (crimson, anxious), I’ve heard the birds grow quiet and night’s muteness. I’ve […]
- Art Making
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What’s Next?
In When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron tells a story about Trungpa Rinpoche: He was traveling with his attendants to a monastery he’d never seen before. As they neared the gates, he saw a large guard dog with huge teeth and red eyes. It was growling ferociously and struggling to get free from the chain […]
Flow Comes to Town
The positive psychology movement contends that people are most content when they are fully engaged in a task for which they are well suited. Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi calls this state flow. According to his research, the best way to achieve happiness is to view it as a “by-product of absorption.” And as Csikzentmihalyi points out, it […]