The Soul of Fine Art: Delve into: art, passion, writing, dharma, character, consciousness, culture, intuition, evolution, and the spirit we call soul.
eden's weblog:
you can't outsource your soul work
Thursday Jan 29, 2004
Better is not Best
It was cold to the bone with snow and ice sculpting the landscape on the East Coast. I made it to my local Starbucks, got my cappuccino with the milk creamy as it should be, and then began work on my color pencil art piece.
Someone I hadn’t seen in months comes over to say hello and to see what I’m working on. He looks at my art and says: “Yeah, this one is better than the others.”
It’s time to clarify. Comparisons in art are traps.
Wednesday Jan 28, 2004
Fundamental Funhouse
Language is one of humanity’s supreme inventions. With words we can describe our experiences, our memories, and our thoughts to others. On this level language works with functional elegance. While it’s true that not all experience can be put into words, or images for that matter, we accept this minor limitation for the greater aspect that language bestows upon its users.
But, what happens when we run into transcendental experiences that defy words and exist beyond thinking? Of course, I am referring to art from the soul in this context.
Tuesday Jan 27, 2004
Enough Said
The following account is about writing; the point is vividly relevant for all artists.
“In 1969 Steps, a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, won the National Book Award. Six years later a freelance writer named Chuck Ross, to test the old theory that a novel by an unknown writer doesn’t have a chance, typed the first twenty-one pages of Steps and sent them out to four publishers as the work of ‘Erik Demos.’ All four rejected the manuscript. Two years after that he typed out the whole book and sent it, again credited to Erik Demos, to more publishers, including the original publisher of the Kosinski book, Random House. Again, all rejected it with unhelpful comments—Random House used a form letter. Altogether, fourteen publishers (and thirteen literary agents) failed to recognize a book that had already been published and had won an important prize.”
—Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews & Rejections
Monday Jan 19, 2004
The Jar Lid
One day, I watched a friend trying to unscrew a stubborn lid from a jar, and couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried?
Finally, out of frustration, he said: “The lid is on way too tight and I don’t want to break the glass.”
Thursday Jan 15, 2004
The Answer
The master and his student, dressed in well-worn saffron colored robes, were walking along a dirt road one late afternoon toward the next village. They decided to stop and rest in the shade for a while. The student, deeply troubled by all the pain and suffering in every village and city they had visited over the past year, asked his teacher: “Master, how do you explain this world?”
The master, without hesitation, replied: “What do you expect from so much karmic residue?”
For many moments, the student thought: Why such a callous answer?
As they continued on their journey in silence, the student suddenly realized the beauty of the master’s insight, and in that instant decided he would begin doing his part to clean up the residue by making someone laugh in the next village.
