"It's a meditative trance, scraping the top of your subconscious with a knife.  The shavings may be a song.. "  That's  Bruce Springsteen, describing his songwriting creative process.  We were at the National Constitution Center today on Independence Mall, the same Mall that houses the Liberty Bell, to see The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen, an exhibit organized by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

In the 80's when Springsteen hit it big I was too stuck in classical music to listen to Rock and Roll.  Now in retrospect I appreciate what I was missing!  More touching to me than seeing his guitars or his motorcycle, the photographs or the posters,  were the dozens of lined spiral notebooks with handwritten songs.  They speak to a creative genius whose poetry couldn't stop pouring out.  Sometimes there were crossings out. More often, the pages were uncorrected.

Listening with headphones to an old radio interview, I was awed to hear him describe his creative process.  After the meditative trance phase, came the craft - the refining again and again, with discipline and persistence.  He said 95% of it didn't come to fruition, but when the 5% is something like Born in the U.S.A., the 95% percent fades away and all the work doesn't matter.

I am struck by the similarity of the creative process, across genres, across mediums, across time.  I am grateful to the friends who wanted to see this exhibit with us.  Otherwise we wouldn't have gone and I would have missed out. Now I await the CD compilation of his work they are sending us!

The Practice of Practice

"Technique itself springs from play, because we can acquire technique only by the practice of practice, by persistently experimenting and playing with our tools and testing their limits and resistances. Creative work is play; it is free speculation using the materials of one's chosen form." (from Free Play, by Stephen Nachmanovitch)

It is both exciting and scary to be exploring and expanding my tools and materials as an artist. If I can keep discovering anew the mindset that Nachmanovitch is pointing to, then it's all good. Easier said than done. The "practice of practice" helps.

The carefree playfulness of the girl in in the center of my mixed-media monoprint "If the Shoe Fits" is heightened by her context. May I learn from my own image!

Nachmanovitch Nuggets

I first read Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, by Stephen Nachmanovitch, in 1991. It is an amazing treat to be re-reading it now, with new eyes. Here are some of my favorite nuggets:

"Creativity becomes everything we do and perceive."

"If life is full of joy, joy feeds the creative process. If life is full of grief, grief feeds the creative process."

"...there is no ultimate breakthrough; what we find in the development of a creative life is an open-ended series of provisional breakthroughs. In this journey there is no endpoint, because it is the journey into the soul."

Old Dream Gets a New Life

My art studio is almost ready! My contractor said today, "People are glad to see us and then glad to see us go." I know what he means. I have been obsessed with transforming this double garage space. Fortunately it already had heat, electricity, windows with wonderful light, and its own outside entrance door. It is connected to the house - good in cold weather - but when I close the door to the rest of the house, I will be at work in another world. It will be a relief when the dust, the mess, and the array of workmen's tools are gone.

Then I will move in my tools. I have been itching to spend more time with watercolors, which would be new for me, as well as returning to my mixed media materials of recycled junk, found objects, weird scraps of paper and memorabilia. I need to get back to my visual journal. I will have a separate table dedicated to it, so I can leave the materials out and work on it ongoingly, amidst other projects.

Unpacking my boxes of art supplies will be a joy, finding old friends and new possibilities. I am ready to be surprised. There will be shelves for my art books. A place for music. Curtains on the windows that will allow maximum light yet still provide privacy.

I knew this was the right house for us, as soon as I saw this space and instantly saw a future studio in my mind's eye.

I have been waiting for this moment since I was ten years old.