Tag: Artist

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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hossein-zare-which-one-ladders-climb-learn

Too often, convinced of our own intelligence, we stay in a comfort zone that ensures that we never feel stupid (and are never challenged to learn or reconsider what we know). It obscures from view various weaknesses in our understanding, until eventually it’s too late to change course. This is where the silent toll is taken.

Each of us faces a threat as we pursue our craft. Like sirens on the rocks, ego sings a soothing, validating song— which can lead to a wreck. The second we let the ego tell us we have graduated, learning grinds to a halt. That’s why Frank Shamrock said, “Always stay a student.” As in, it never ends.

~ Ryan Holiday, excerpt from his new book “Ego is the Enemy” published June, 2016.

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A demanding mistress

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You work and you work and you work and you work and you work, and you are determined to wrestle this thing to the ground, making art… But your vision is not yet formed, your work does not yet bear that distinctive mark, your unique hand, your DNA… In your despair, you toss and you turn, crying yourself to sleep night after night after night, endlessly doubting, endlessly doubting your ability and sometimes feeling like a motherless child. I have been there — I know. Searching high and low for your own voice, for your own expressive utterance, you lead yourself down paths that dissipate… Confused and fuzzy, you begin to imagine that all the forces of the world are conspiring against you…

And yet, and still, the pursuit — that driving thing called art — hounds you, and you don’t know any rest. And, determined to make a way out of no way every day, you rise up and you hit it, own it, go into your studio… Art is a demanding mistress.

~ Carrie Mae Weems, 2016 School of Visual Arts Commencement Speech

Sources: Photo – Gund Gallery. Quote: Brainpickings

WaterPassion

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kuntze-photography-yellow-swimming-water

Kerstin Kuntze, 50, is from Cologne, Germany. She is an artist who uses photography melded with graphic infusion.  She explains in Saatchi Art:

“…and most of all it’s about passion. Picture making has always been an internal compulsion; my first urges began as a child, “I was always drawing” – these impulses continuing through to the present. My search for the internal brilliance of subject matter drives me. My artwork displays a wide range of emotions embodying colors from darkest black to fieriest red. I sincerely desire that my passion and the intensities of my emotion will be conveyed through visual creations touching you in a personal way. There are a myriad of reasons to create – this quest has become my life.

Don’t miss her entire series: WaterPassionº

 

Tuesday Morning Wake-Up Call: A little country in between where I can be the king

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Yoann-Lemoine

It’s uncomfortable because you’re never going to be an expert in every field. I’m not the best director and I’m not the best musician – and I don’t think I will ever be – but at least there is a little country in between where I can be the king. It’s probably going to be a small country, but at least I can live there happily…

I think that pressure of wanting to absolutely succeed precisely on the one thing is very toxic. I do want to succeed in general, but I’ve been asking myself, “What is success really to you?” And I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I think that success to me is to manage to be free, but also to do things that I like. It seems very stupid, but at the end of the day if I completely like and am proud of what I do, then to me it’s success.

~ Yoann Lemoine, “I’m not there yet” (Director of Woodkid)

Notes:

  • Yoann Lemoine, 33, is a French music video director, graphic designer and singer-songwriter. His most notable works include his music video direction for Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream”, Taylor Swift’s single “Back to December”, Lana Del Rey’s “Born to Die” and Mystery Jets’ “Dreaming of Another World”.
  • Quote source: Clean Well Lighted Place.
  • Photo: Moving Image

Aspiring to be a (fill in the blank here)…

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struggle-artist-sketch

You aspire to be a writer, a photographer, a painter, an actor, a journalist – an anything.  You need to take a few moments to read this excerpt and then continue on to the full post.

“I read those words, and had a sticky, squirmy reaction; I felt the way I do when I stand back and witness the horror of someone else’s undoing. It’s a tight kink in the stomach; a hard walnut in the throat. We’ve all been there, haven’t we: we’ve seen the speaker who loses the words. The young actor who blanks out on stage. The musician who forgets the chords. The writer — the food writer; science writer; academic; novelist; it doesn’t matter — blocked by fear. We wince. Who are they to even try, some whisper as we watch them tumble from their place. When it comes our time, we become that person, naked on the stage: doubtful, panicky, assured by the nagging, the poison, the gossipy gremlin chatter over our shoulders, promising that we too, will most certainly, most definitely, fail…”

Read entire post here: Elissa Altman @ Poor Man’s Feast.

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