Marcia Meier's Blog, in which she writes about writing, publishing, memoir, poetry, and just about any other aspect of life.
Posted in: art
You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm. - Colette
Here's what I love about this quote: It says go ahead and make a fool of yourself. Everyone does, and it's the only way to learn and grow. I have certainly done my share of foolish things, and I can say often they have taken me in a new, creative and prosperous direction.
“Creativity is a scavenger hunt. It’s your obligation to pay attention to clues, to the thing that gives you that little tweak. The muses or fairies – they’re trying to get your attention.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
When I read Liz Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, I was going through a similar life transition and deeply resonated with the book, as did millions of others. Since then, I have been intrigued to see her interest in creativity become a passion, and I have learned a lot from her. (See her amazing TED talk.)
The quote above, from the October Oprah magazine article about Gilbert and her new novel, The Signature of All Things, is a great reminder to be aware as writers.
Prompts from the universe, your muse, fairies – whatever you want to call them – are real. But hearing them requires slowing down and listening, being receptive to the creative gifts that come to us. Several times I’ve had powerful experiences like this.
More than 20 years ago I wrote a scene in a creative writing class. I really liked it, but didn’t have a clue where to take it. So I put it away and only very occasionally looked at it. I just didn’t know how it would fit into a larger story.
Then, about three years ago, I was in a dream state in the early morning, barely awake, and the story came to me. I watched the entire novel unfold in my mind’s eye. The scene I had written was clearly a prologue, and I knew the entire narrative from that beginning. I woke up and went to my desk and wrote a brief synopsis and a chapter outline. I’ve been working on the novel ever since.
More recently, I needed to work out a problem with a new nonfiction book idea. Once again, the solution – vivid and detailed – came to me in an early morning dream state.
These moments of revelation, bursts of creative genius, happen all the time, perhaps in small ways we might not necessarily recognize as divinely inspired. But I know they are.
From the perfect word suddenly popping into one’s head, to the discovery of a title for that article or book that had remained elusive.
The muse exists. It works. But you have to let it in, be receptive, invite it to inhabit your creative space. Meditation works, so does journaling. I do both. Listening to music, walking on the beach or through the woods also is effective. Any immersion in Nature will invite your muse to visit. Thoreau went to Walden Pond. Wordsworth walked the English Lake District and gazed upon fields of daffodils.
Muses don’t like to be rushed and they don’t come on command. But with a little openness and invitation, they will come.
Many of you have read Julia Cameron's wonderful book on creativity, The Artist's Way. I have had my copy since 1991, and while I've read it a number of times, it is only recently that I decided to work the book - do all the tasks and exercises.
It's been an interesting and in many ways surprising journey. I've journaled most of my life, so the morning pages aren't new. What is, though, is the shift I've experienced in my creativity. My writing comes more readily, more effortlessly. And my life seems to be shifting, as well. Julia tells us that will happen, and the skeptic in me kind of snorted. But she is right.
One of the tasks is to write An Artist's Prayer. She offers one as an example in the book. I actually like mine a lot better. Have you written an artist's prayer? Feel free to use mine when you're sending entreaties heavenward.
My Artist's Prayer
O, great Creator
Guide my hand
Open my heart
Quiet my mind
Allow your inspiration to flow to and through me
Make me your instrument for creativity
Allow my words to move and touch others
To soothe, to bring awareness, to make life easier for others
To bring about justice and foment peace
May I always work in a way that brings your holy spirit and love to others
May your vast love hold me safe and keep me whole as I create and write in service to you and the world
“You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.” – Anais Nin, to a young writer
“If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.” -- David Foster Wallace.
This quote was in this week’s Brain Pickings newsletter and it really resonated. I have been thinking a lot recently about imperfection. What it means in a work of art. What it means for the artist. What it means for 
those of us who appreciate it, flaws and all. How it serves as a symbol of the imperfections we all carry within us, and of the imperfections of humans, society and the world in general.
I bought a silver necklace when I was in Costa Rica last fall. It is quite beautiful, with orange stones and silver links. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the two silver tubular beads near the pendant are two different lengths. Maybe by only an eighth of an inch, but there’s a difference. I didn’t notice it at first, of course. Only after studying it did it become apparent.
It made me wonder if the artist had done it intentionally, as a mark of individuality. Mapmakers insert intentional errors into their maps as a way to copyright them. They might change the spelling of a street, or leave off a tiny road altogether. That way if someone stole the map and tried to market it, they would know instantly if it was theirs. I doubt the necklace-maker did it for that reason. Perhaps she ran out of similar-sized beads, or – given the slight difference – didn’t notice it herself. At any rate, it doesn't diminish the beauty of the necklace, and I would be willing to bet that no one would ever notice it while I was wearing the piece.
Yet, we all seem to strive for perfection in our work. Our industries and businesses demand it, schools expect our children to work hard to reach it, our parents expect exemplary behavior. But art is not perfect. Art is necessarily imperfect, asymmetrical, atypical, individualistic. Unique. And it is art that makes our world – our lives – so rich.
Wallace was on to something. While I think the quote above was meant to encourage the perfectionists among us to chill out, what results from letting go of perfectionism is often art. It is the process of allowing what is emerging to do so without forcing it, without preconceived ideas of what it’s supposed to be, look like and act. It’s a philosophy we can apply to the art we create, as well as our lives and even our children (speaking to myself here). Let them become who and what they want to be, not what our perfectionist egos want them to be.
Write, sculpt, paint, play an instrument – create – in the way that feels right to you. It is all art, and it is all good.