Previous Topics: Excerpts from Wilde's
By Mary Sullivan Holdgrafer
Take Time for By Anne Johnson |
Inspiration Center: Fall 2004 Those in awe of very creative people often believe their vision and creativity is innate. The reality is creativity must be worked at, nurtured, set upon, cajoled or even bamboozled! Finding the inner voice, or the muse, is more often than not a discipline or routine which places us in the right frame of mind to "receive" the muse's gifts. This month, we feature Jane's thoughts on Daydreaming. It is an excerpt from her book "The Quilted Garden," and it gives you some insight into one artist's strategy in aligning herself with the forces of creativity. The Benefits of Daydreaming I have always been a daydreamer. As a child, it interfered with learning, but as I got older, daydreams became projections of the future—a space where all things became possible. I could see life before me and act as if that future was a reality. Today, this natural ability for the imagination to sustain a mental picture is called creative visualization. We all use creative visualization, usually subconsciously. We use it to our detriment as well as to our benefit. If we worry, we are visualizing disaster. If we hope, we are visualizing success. Obviously, both ways of thinking have the power to affect your attitude and your actions. If we can learn to direct our visions, we can break down some of the internal barriers that keep us from our full potential. I actually recommend daydreaming as a potent tool for enhancing your life. Over the years, I have tapped my daydreams to summon my muse. I have developed a ritual to trigger my receptivity to creative possibilities. I begin most mornings by looking at beautiful pictures. The colors, shapes, or atmosphere of a picture catch my imagination and set my dreaming-self free to wander. Once my imagination has been sparked, I let it ascend to the primary operating position for a day of creative work. At this point, I can actually feel waves of well-being and the tingle of unknown possibilities rising through my body. The mood of anticipation has been established and, if all goes well, this receptivity and heightened awareness will open the mental flood gates and manifest itself in some interesting work. Many creative people have a system to kick-start their imaginations. For some, it's music that gets ideas flowing, or a strict daily routine, or going for a walk. There are as many ways to court the muse as there are artists. As you work and dream, listen to your senses to discover where your muse lives. Once you find her hiding places, it will be easier to call on her on a regular schedule. |
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Previous Topics: By Mary Sullivan Holdgrafer
Take Time for
By Anne Johnson |
Inspiration Center: Spring 2004 In such pragmatic times, It is not often we hear praise of art as an end in itself. Although most of us recognize Oscar Wilde as the author of "The Picture of Dorian Grey" and "The Importance of Being Earnest," he was also an influential aesthetic critic of turn-of -the-century English and European art. The following are excerpts of lectures Mr. Wilde gave while traveling through the United States during the years 1881-82. From Boston to St. Louis and San Francisco, the inimitable Mr Wilde gave 140 lectures addressing aesthetic conditions as he found them in the States. Many of his stated precepts have been vigorously challenged by the modernist and post-modernist movements of the 20th century; but the passage of time has only made Wilde's aestheticism worthy of fresh consideration. From "Lectures in America" ("The English Renaissance in Art", "The Decorative Arts",
This devotion to beauty and to the creation of beautiful things is the test of all great civilised nations. Philosophy may teach us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of our neighbours, and science resolve the moral sense into a secretion of sugar, but art is what makes the life of each citizen a sacrament and not a speculation, art is what makes the life of the whole race immortal.
For beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the withered leaves of autumn; but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons and a possession for all eternity.
And yet the truths of art cannot be taught: they are revealed only, revealed to natures which have made themselves receptive of all beautiful impressions by the study and worship of all beautiful things. And hence the enormous importance given to the decorative arts in our English Renaissance; hence all that marvel of design that comes from the hand of Edward Burne-Jones, all that weaving of tapestry and staining of glass, that beautiful working in clay and metal and wood which we owe to William Morris, the greatest handicraftsman we have had in England since the fourteenth century . Let there be no flower in your meadows that does not wreathe its tendrils around your pillows, no little leaf in your Titan forests that does not lend its form to design, no curving spray of wild rose or brier that does not live for ever in carven arch or window or marble, no bird in your air that is not giving the iridescent wonder of its colour, the exquisite curves of its wings in flight, to make more precious the preciousness of simple adornment.
We spend our days, each one of us, in looking for the secret of life. Well, the secret of life is in art.
It must always be remembered that what is well and carefully made by an honest workman, after a rational design, increases in beauty and value as the years go on. The old furniture brought over by the Pilgrims, two hundred years ago, which I saw in New England, is just as good and as beautiful to-day as it was when it first came here. Now, what you must do is to bring artists and handicraftsmen together. Handicraftsmen cannot live, certainly cannot thrive, without such companionship. Separate these two and you rob art of all spiritual motive.
Do not think that the commercial spirit which is the basis of your life and cities here is opposed to art. Who built the beautiful cities of the world but commercial men and commercial men only? Genoa built by its traders, Florence by its bankers, and Venice, most lovely of all, by its noble and honest merchants.
The art we want is the art based on all the inventions of modern civilisation, and to suit all the needs of nineteenth-century life.
Do you think, for instance, that we object to machinery? I tell you we reverence it; we reverence it when it does its proper work, when it relieves man from ignoble and soulless labour, not when it seeks to do that which is valuable only when wrought by the hands and hearts of men. Let us have no machine-made ornament at all; it is all bad and worthless and ugly. And let us not mistake the means of civilisation for the end of civilisation; steam-engine, telephone and the like, are all wonderful, but remember that their value depends entirely on the noble uses we make of them, on the noble spirit in which we employ them, not on the things themselves.
Golden rod and aster and rose and all the flowers that cover your valleys in the spring and your hills in the autumn: let them be the flowers for your art. Not merely has Nature given you the noblest motives for a new school of decoration, but to you above all other countries has she given the utensils to work in.
And lastly, let us remember that art is the one thing which Death cannot harm. The little house at Concord may be desolate, but the wisdom of New England's Plato is not silenced nor the brilliancy of that Attic genius dimmed: the lips of Longfellow are still musical for us though his dust be turning into the flowers which he loved: and as it is with the greater artists, poet and philosopher and song-bird, so let it be with you. |
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Previous Topics: Take Time for By Anne Johnson |
Inspiration Center: Winter 2004 We found out about Gary and Mary Sullivan Holdgrafer's site through their talented web designer, who thought we might make natural link partners. We took a look at their site ExploringCreativity.com and agreed. It features monthly essays by both Gary and Mary, very nice images of Mary's textiles as well as quotes on nurturing creativity and mindful living. Craft Versus Art ©Copyright 2002 - 2003 . Holdgrafer Initiatives. Mary Sullivan Holdgrafer is a textile artist, teacher, facilitator, curator and scholar. Her work has been exhibited and is held in public and private collections in Canada and the United States. She was recently featured in an article in Alberta Views magazine which described the work of five leading Alberta art quilters. You may contact Mary at mary@exploringcreativity.com
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Inspiration Center: Summer 2002 We were quite pleased to have Googled our way onto womenfolk.com. The internet offers tons of writing, but not often of this quality. The site is the brainchild of Anne Johnson and features sections on the creativity of women's quilting through American history and "creative inspiration and information for women." Each section is packed with an astonishing number of well-written articles. The article below on "moodling" we especially liked, and Anne was gracious enough to allow us to present it to you. Take Time for Creative Moodling |
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