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Watched Iconoclasts with Fiona Apple and Quentin Tarantino this week. I love how they talked about being artists and where inspiration comes from, a kind of 'God Antenna' (see above).
And I've just read in Katherine Mansfield's Letters:
November 1920
What you quote from Van Gogh is very fine.
["...Nevertheless I find in my work a certain reverberation of what fascinated me. I know that Nature told me something, that she spoke to me, and that I took down her message in shorthand. Perhaps my transcript contains words that are undecipherable; belike there are faults and omission in it too, - still it may possess something that the wood, the beach or the figures said."]
... Tchehov felt just like that.
...I don't believe there are any short cuts to Art. Victory is the reward of battle just exactly as it is in Life. And the more one knows of one's soldiers the better chance one has. That's not an absolutely true analogy tho'. The thing is more subtle.
But what I do believe with my whole soul is that one's outlook is the climate in which one's art either thrives or doesn't grow. I am dead certain that there is no separating Art and Life. And no artist can afford to leave out Life. If we mean to work we must go straight to Life for our nourishment. There's no substitute. But I am violent on this subjick. I must leave it.
I think with both art and life: neither can be pushed. And this is what Fiona and Quentin were discussing. If it's not all there and filling you up, then there's no use in trying to create something... from nothing. I believe also with life it's just cruel to yourself, and the natural state of things, to pressure yourself to do something when you don't feel called, compelled or inspired to do so. If it's a 'should do' then you most likely shouldn't. Or, as I've similarly heard: If in doubt... don't.
I typically have been a thinker, ruminator, cogitator, (agitator!)... i.e. worrier. Going through a list of shoulds in my head concerning the 'best' to do for the future. Of course the future doesn't exist. One only has 'now' and one ought to sense the now and how one is feeling now, because that is what will guide one in the 'future'. If you stick with that you can't go wrong.
So, this is the God Antenna of which the Apple and the Tarantino speak. You sense what's happening with you at each moment and when inspiration or interest comes, it comes. No use erecting voluminous satellite dishes just to find something. Stick with where you're at this moment and it will come to you.
*sits*
*crickets chirp*
so... *sits listening to crickets*
P.S. I meant to put this on my other blog, but seeing as I've put it here I'll leave it. I've been wanting to bring this blog back to its former eclecticness anyway. Also... can't think of anything else I'm interested in writing about at the moment. (at least these means I'm walking the walk, or the talk, or the blog, or whatever...!)
