Category Archives: art

Principles of Art: Steal from yourself (aka, everything is an artists tool)

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stealfromyourself!

In order to MAKE THINGS, we really must learn like Austin Kleon says to “Steal like an artist.” Not only is steal­ing like an artist learn­ing how to cul­ti­vate your voice through oth­ers works, it’s learn­ing about how to use your life, how to steal from your­self. It’s learn­ing how to use & blend all the char­ac­ters in your life into arche­types, how to cap­ture, retell & remix sto­ries & expe­ri­ences from our own indi­vid­ual per­sonal expe­ri­ences. It’s learn­ing how to cre­ate work that seeps through from its core your mes­sage & philoso­phies & ideas.

This in turn, does 2 things : a) rev­o­lu­tion­izes your work & b) rev­o­lu­tion­izes your life.

A) rev­o­lu­tion­izes your work. Learn­ing to look at life this way, turns your story into an hon­est & indi­vid­ual cre­ation. Because it draws from your life, your likes, your expe­ri­ences, your con­ver­sa­tions, your bits & details, it could have only been cre­ated by you. Peo­ple can relate bet­ter when all the veils & shrouds are pulled off.

B) Rev­o­lu­tion­izes your life. No small detail is ever not good enough to be con­sid­ered for your story. Every­thing is truly OK because it’s the clay & crayons & chro­matic scales, the raw mate­ri­als of our art. All of the mun­dane & bor­ing shit then becomes trans­formed deep into our­selves. Per­spec­tive shifts, now every­thing is seen as a part of the whole.

notes on index cards

Cap­ture on index cards!

My biggest hang up is how to do this. Where to begin? How to trim the fat & cut down to the core? I’ve fig­ured out two meth­ods for learn­ing how to steal from yourself.

•Write. Every­day. no mat­ter what it is you’re try­ing to achieve, write. Ana­lyze thoughts, record con­ver­sa­tions, describe in sub­lime, per­fect detail (to almost a triv­ial degree) the foods you eat, your sur­round­ings, other peo­ple, your clothes. Explore ideas, write your own book & movie reviews, respond to arti­cles online, write let­ters & poems. Hand write & type (not either or, do both). Get intox­i­cated & write then (but maybe hold off on pub­lish­ing that quite yet). Write so much it hurts, write till you get cal­louses & your fin­gers start to bleed.

Maybe you’ll find your voice/ style/ mes­sage.
Maybe you’ll start to notice the poetry of life.
Maybe it will open you up to the new expe­ri­ences in order to bet­ter tell the story.
Maybe you’ll begin to develop a sense of com­pas­sion, magic, con­nec­tiv­ity, & under­stand­ing.
Maybe writ­ing will just alle­vi­ate boredom.

•Col­lect. Save con­ver­sa­tions (ever­note?), keep a jour­nal (duh), snap pic­tures of every­thing, cut clip­pings, high­light in books, col­lect soul­ful trin­kets, get a pin­ter­est account, make inspi­ra­tion books, CAPTURE CAPTURE CAPTURE.

Voice is, in my expe­ri­ence, devel­oped when you have a clear sense of self. Know what you like, what you want, what you want to cre­ate & why & the best way to do this is to have an arse­nal of sto­ries, quotes, clips, images, & ideas at your dis­posal. (Bonus: use the power of cloud soft­ware to have them at your dis­posal at all times!)

(*Disclaimer-there’s a dif­fer­ence between hoard­ing & col­lect­ing, & in between hoard­ing & min­i­mal­ism is the artists way.)

Maybe this will lead to self actu­al­iza­tion.
Maybe you’ll become aware of pat­terns & habits pre­vi­ously unno­ticed.
Maybe you’ll develop a valu­able wealth of inspi­ra­tion & mate­r­ial to work with.

—

In what ways have you learned to use your own life to influ­ence your work?

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The ultimately simple 2 step guide to choosing what you believe in.

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If it uplifts even when out­landish, it’s in.

If it reduces, depresses, or sup­presses, even if widely believed true, it’s out. 

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Philosophy: a study of life

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20120328-181226.jpg

It’s hard to explain to peo­ple (like my mother some­times) why I would want to study phi­los­o­phy or why I would iden­tify myself as a philoso­pher (isn’t phi­los­o­phy after all a tedious, dead, schol­arly hobby for old men or peo­ple who laze around with no prac­ti­cal ambition?)

What is prac­ti­cal­ity other than repet­i­tive pat­tern form­ing? Life is this whole big per­for­mance art piece & half of us are walk­ing around lost with our heads cut off, search­ing for a pay check so we can drench our­selves in booze to numb this non­sense. Zomb­i­fied in our offices & in front of tv sets, is this practicality?

Phi­los­o­phy is the dream­ers game. When med­i­tated on & under­stood emo­tion­ally, we can apply it to the way we live our lives & then it makes a dif­fer­ence. Then it becomes a painters tool & we can trans­form, we can evolve. It takes the search for answers, the whys & what’s & mys­ter­ies for us to lay the ground work for evo­lu­tion. We can begin to cre­ate out own mean­ings & change our per­spec­tives & cre­ate a sense of magic in our lives.

All artists, whether inten­tion­ally or not, are philoso­phers, all poets & entre­pre­neurs & even politi­cians are philoso­phers (even though theirs is a often a phi­los­o­phy I don’t sub­scribe to). Phi­los­o­phy defines how we live our lives. Whether pos­i­tively or neg­a­tively, with beauty or cyn­i­cism, our col­lec­tive per­cep­tions are are our life philoso­phies& study­ing phi­los­o­phy as a sub­ject cre­ates new thought pat­terns, chal­lenges our beliefs & con­cep­tions & helps us become crea­tures of meaning.

So study up.

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Creativity & awareness: a case for self involvement

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20120327-171402.jpg & awareness: a case for self involvement')">

I would like it if self involve­ment didn’t have such neg­a­tive connotations.

Isn’t all forms of cre­ativ­ity ulti­mately self involved? & why is that con­sid­ered so ter­ri­ble & lowly? One can only expe­ri­ence & under­stand the uni­verse from an indi­vid­ual per­spec­tive, from our own indi­vid­ual jour­neys & expe­ri­ences. If self aware­ness is praised, how can self involve­ment be frowned upon, how do you become aware with­out being involved? Self involve­ment is not nar­cis­sis­tic or ego­is­tic, & think­ing it is is just a myth that allows for author­i­ties to enslave & control.

Self involve­ment ulti­mately leads to self ful­fill­ment & mind­less con­sumerism becomes replaced with a sense of spir­i­tual mind­ful­ness, con­sumerism & blind obe­di­ence can­not coex­ist with self fulfillment.

The solid world has been dis­solv­ing for a while now, with our knowl­edge of the quan­tum world, abstract sur­re­al­ism & now the dig­i­tal era. We need less phys­i­cal & triv­ial things in our lives, which ulti­mately frees us up to cre­ate & become involved with the self.
In east­ern mythol­ogy, it is explained that the uni­verse can­not expe­ri­ence itself, exactly like how the eyes can­not see them­selves with­out a mir­ror. The ego, the self, is that mir­ror, & it is our respon­si­bil­ity as an ego– to expe­ri­ence it.

So really there’s no choice other than to expe­ri­ence things as your­self. You can’t expe­ri­ence it as some­one else — that posi­tions been filled & you can’t expe­ri­ence in soci­eties terms or any­one else’s because that’s already hap­pen­ing too. & that mis­er­able, anx­ious, ter­ri­fied thing you feel is the uni­verse telling you BE YOU I’VE DONE THIS ALREADY, IM HERE TO EXPERIENCE ME AS YOU!

It’s bold & dar­ing & vul­ner­a­ble because it’s not a pat­tern, it’s not some­thing that’s been done before, even prac­tice stops being repet­i­tive because each expe­ri­ence is a com­pletely new, fresh, unique moment you can’t & won’t & haven’t expe­ri­enced before & again.

Self involve­ment is set­ting the uni­verse free. Chip­ping away at the plaque till sun shines through again.

What we deem as neg­a­tive nar­cis­sism is really just a mas­sive cover up, a symp­tom of true self neglect. You speak of being involved with another per­son or project or com­mu­nity & that is con­sid­ered pos­i­tive yet being involved with the only per­son you can actu­ally be involved with is ego­tis­ti­cal & pre­ten­tious & self­ish & all sorts of other really nasty things which make no sense either.

It is a grand rev­o­lu­tion & there are a zil­lion strate­gies & meth­ods, but it’s ulti­mately on YOU. it is the ulti­mate form of cre­ativ­ity & authenticity.

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The trust of flow

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I know exactly what flow feels like. I learned it from my danc­ing. I am a noto­ri­ously ridicu­lous dancer, but I also am hav­ing the most fun ever. It goes like this, for a moment before I start I’ll feel uncom­fort­able, awk­ward, I take a few breaths in, which is usu­ally accom­pa­nied by a huge smile, and then I take a few breaths out, com­pletely let go, and begin. And then there is no I any­more, it is not I, Sara Whit­te­more, doing this com­pletely rhyth­mic, nutty dance, I am just a ves­sel. Some­times, the ego comes back & I’ll stop & feel silly or weird for a sec­ond, but I just repeat it. It just takes prac­tice & a few breaths.

For a long time, danc­ing was the only way I ever expe­ri­enced this feel­ing. Now I am learn­ing how to incor­po­rate it. In art, I usu­ally don’t come with a plan, I don’t know what I want to draw or paint or make. This has been known to stop me before I even started. Same with writ­ing, “but I don’t have any ideas!” Now i just go through the exact same process, few breaths in/few breaths out. In writ­ing & art I’ve learned some­thing even more beau­ti­ful about the flow. It’s really just com­plete trust. Trust in both my really awe­some inner self-also known as the universe-trust that what­ever I’m about to make needs to be made, whether I show any­one, or if it’s just for myself. It’s all trust, there can’t be a sin­gle moment of doubt or the ego-critic comes back & I falter.

It is truly like jump­ing off a cliff but really KNOWING that I’ll never hit the ground. It’s the most absorb­ing feel­ing I’ve ever expe­ri­enced, com­plete & utter trust.

It started with my crazy danc­ing, it infil­trated my cre­ativ­ity, & now it’s seep­ing into my life in all areas. It’s about let­ting go of the worry, to the unini­ti­ated it seems like blind faith, but I am stand­ing on empir­i­cal evi­dence stat­ing the con­trary. This, that I am writ­ing now is a visual man­i­fes­ta­tion of the trust I am discovering.

I trust myself, I trust the uni­verse, I trust art, I trust the words, I trust the con­nec­tions I am mak­ing, I trust the pain I expe­ri­ence. I trust the frus­tra­tion when I can’t find trust.

We’re all cos­mi­cally indif­fer­ent, we can­not cause cos­mic harm, we can only trust & flow.

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Principles of Art: Art is Ultimately about Death

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In Prin­ci­ples of Art I wrote that Art is Ulti­mately About Death. Abi­gal com­mented saying,

“#6 is prob­a­bly my favourite — I have always felt that art, in a sense, is about death, though artic­u­lat­ing why exactly is tricky”

I think I finally have an answer.

Art is about death because both in it’s cre­ation and obser­va­tion, the ego must shrink and even­tu­ally die to fully and truly become the art.

Ego death is a state where the ego ceases to exist because it is ulti­mately one with the whole, no separation.

It’s often fright­en­ing since the ego is such a firm habit, it has become so firmly aware and in belief of itself that it is ter­ri­fied of remem­ber­ing that it isn’t real. A hal­lu­ci­na­tion. When com­plete sur­ren­der occurs, the sep­a­ra­tion dis­solves, the fear dis­si­pates and there is noth­ing but true BLISS.

Art is about death because it is a hint of that non sep­a­ra­tion, that whole­ness. It speaks of fear and incred­i­ble bliss, dis­so­lu­tion into the everything-nothingness.

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Principles of Art: Reflections

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I love look­ing at reflec­tions, sky­scrap­ers and trees reflected in water, objects in mir­rors, light reflect­ing off the shim­mery sur­face of bub­bles. Reflec­tions are things I like cap­tur­ing in art, my pho­tog­ra­phy often involves win­dows or sun­glass reflec­tions. One of my favorite pic­tures was taken over­look­ing an oil can. You can see the weird set­tle­ments in the oil, the pat­terns, and my reflec­tion look­ing in.

I exam­ine why reflec­tions appeal to me so. I’ve decided it’s because reflec­tion is another prin­ci­ple of art (and art thusly is a prin­ci­ple of life. My prin­ci­ples of art are my prin­ci­ples of life.)

Life is reflec­tive. What we’re expe­ri­enc­ing on the out­side is a reflec­tion of our inner selves. Our envi­ron­ments, our art, our friends, our trou­bles, our messes, our par­ties and dresses– all reflections.

To reflect on our lives-the outer lives, will tell us of of our true inner natures, show­ing us the lim­it­ing thoughts and pat­terns we’ve been uncon­sciously pro­ject­ing. Exam­in­ing our reflec­tions helps us break free.

Every­one in my life is a reflec­tion o my inner life. What do they say about the state of things? What does my job, my art, my writ­ing, my body say? I’m a mir­ror of your true self too, what does that say about you?

My art cap­tures reflec­tions because I’m trans­fixed with the idea that life is a reflec­tion. I’m reflect­ing on that in this post. Reflect reflect reflect.

What are you reflect­ing on? How is your outer world rep­re­sent­ing your inner? 

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Latest Art Work

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I don’t have any words to post today, and alas, it is my first day back at work in a long time (3 wks!), so I’m going to take this oppor­tu­nity to share some of the recent art pieces I’ve been work­ing on! Enjoy!

Also, if any­one has any advice on sell­ing art online! Talk to me!

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Capture

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What I want to cap­ture in my work/ art

Mean­ing–Mean­ing is it’s own meaning// what you get when you break down meaning

Con­nec­tion- Every­thing is con­nected because noth­ing really exists

Space- Negative-positive. Our envi­ron­ments are ourselves.

Con­scious­ness- What is it? How can we expand it?

Evo­lu­tion- The effect of media and our brains (internet/technology/mediums)

Beauty- How do we define it? Sub­jec­tive realities?

Form- The mean­ing of forms/formlessness

Para­dox- All things exist and simul­ta­ne­ously don’t exist.

Con­tra­dic­tion- Parts of a whole.

Sacred- How does sacrediliza­tion change our con­scious­ness? (sublimation)

Self explo­ration- Through art/ creativity .

Per­spec­tive- All life depends on how you view it.

 

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Resistance Games

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I get caught up in the how’s of writ­ing a lot. Which note­book do i want to use for what pur­pose (con­se­quently i buy a lot of note­books which sit blank for years…) And now that i have even more writ­ing tools at my dis­posal, there’s a lot of inter­nal con­flict. Do i want to write on 750words? Or in a note­book? Or on scrivener? And which note­book? Would this be bet­ter suited for my jour­nal, or this blank book I carry to cap­ture ideas.

It’s all ego games and dual­ity, resis­tance sent to trip me up.

What does it mat­ter which one I choose? Lately, I’m learn­ing to let go. When I feel like writ­ing in my jour­nal, I write, even if it’s some­thing I intend to post (some­times I feel I can be more open writ­ing in my jour­nal.) Some­times I need to get a lot out and typ­ing is faster and eas­ier. But I do love my hand­writ­ing and the flow of pens and the smell of paper, and I draw a lot and paint in my jour­nal. It helps the flow. There’s so many dif­fer­ent types of paper I like too, so many note­books to choose from. I get anx­i­ety. I never thought my lit­tle note­book predica­ments were any­thing more than silly, but now i see it for what it is. If i get hung up on where I write, I don’t get any writ­ing done. Bummer.

Lately, though, I find new pat­terns aris­ing. If I set goals, like to write on 750words every day for as long as I can, I find myself writ­ing even more in my jour­nal (when I first signed up a year ago, this was one of my fears, what if I say all I need to say online and my note­books go unused and my pen’s atro­phy?!), then I’m writ­ing in my other note­books, then I’m craft­ing posts, and draft­ing plans, and cre­at­ing sto­ries. Some days it is hard to get rolling, yes­ter­day I wrote on 750words “I don’t know why I’m here ( have noth­ing to say.” This hap­pens. Today though I wrote over 1500 words and I didn’t stop there.

It doesn’t mat­ter where I write. It mat­ters that I write. I won’t run out of things to say per­ma­nently, I never do. When i feel like that my hands want to caress a pen and lov­ingly stroke a paper, then do it! If i feel like I need to go briskly, that I need to free write (like now) then I go to the com­puter. If there’s a note­book closer to me, then I’ll chose that one. Now I’m learn­ing to just sit and let my body decide what to use. Now I’m writ­ing more than ever on mul­ti­ple plat­forms in mul­ti­ple places with dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences, each that I love and cher­ish deeply.

A few nights ago, I wrote for about 4 hrs straight, all in dif­fer­ent places. Each place serves a dif­fer­ent need in me. There doesn’t need to be a dual­ity, a ver­sus, what I have to say needs to get said regard­less of where I say it.

I’ve been writ­ing about writ­ing a lot. It clearly fills me with joy. It is my pas­sion, my med­i­ta­tion. I love my tools, but they’re just tools. Let’s remem­ber not to get caught up in them, let’s just write.

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