Tag Archives: art
On Creativity
I write poetry fairly regularly. Pop culture criticism increasingly often. But I’ve wanted to write a novel for about 7 years, and so far have not had the time/guts/patience. I’ll be launching a series of posts reflecting on creativity and what it involves.
What I immediately run into, what I think most artists of any kind run into, is not just self-doubt, but in particular, unless you have the particular naive arrogance of the teens and early twenties, self-contempt. Any good craftsman has a wide and deep and constantly evolving familiarity with the successes in his craft, with the novel or the painting or the installation that succeeded, with the artists who are succeeding. In particular, with the history of all the great works in your particular genre within your particular field of art, that have been produced, and the ones that are currently being produced.
In the face of this, it’s hard, can feel nearly impossible, to produce anything at all original or new.
Which is why I’m beginning to grapple with the idea of creativity as something fundamentally not original, as, ultimately, imitation, perseverance, and will rather than inspiration and originality.
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Make Art
“Wipe away the magic and myth of creating and all that remains is work … No matter what you read, no matter what they claim, nearly all creators spend nearly all their time on the work of creation. There are few overnight successes and many up-all-night successes.” – Creative People Say No
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This is a Song About Fixing Quiet
Gorgeous. Gorgeous gorgeous spoken word poem from Alex Henery.
S H R I K E from Alex Henery on Vimeo.
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Art Love: Andrew Atroshenko
I have a weakness for impressionistic paintings of female figures (see my previous highlight of Msistlav Pavlov), and contemporary Russian romantic painter Andrew Atroshenko hits all of my affinities. The explosions of color, the emphasis on light and movement in the foreground and a background of deep, bold, muted earthen tones…just gorgeous. See more work here.
“Passion of Music”
“Ballerina”
“Into the Light”
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Mstislav Pavlov
I’ve featured a painting of Russian painter Mstislav Pavlov‘s before, and just have to say I am deeply in love with his work. The bright bursts of color and especially the way he uses form and movement to create a sense of energy, or, in the case of the last painting, a mood – exquisite. And of course I love that he focuses on female figures. He spans a whole range from dreamy and wistful to bold and nearly frenzied in the brushstrokes. Just gorgeous.
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Make Art
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Design Love: Otherworldly Sink
Today’s design love comes via Dezeen, which highlighted this stainless steel bit of gorgeousness from Canadian studio The Practice of Everyday Design.
“The idea was to give it a sense of time, as if someone had sat there every day scrubbing the surface until it was so clean it became a mirror,” says Antoine Morris. “The final effect is also almost as if the sink is covered in condensation and someone wiped just one area clean to see themselves.”
The effect is one of ethereal, haunting beauty, as if someone drew back a curtain to reveal a window into another world. Love.
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Adorning by Mstislav Pavlov
Gorgeous. By Russian Impressionistic painter Mstislav Pavlov.
Coffee and Irony 
