Art, photography, marketing, and more from Carol Logan Newbill
In which I bring to you every Friday five cool sites or items or other things I’ve noticed during the preceding week, many (but not necessarily all) fiber- or art-related. Feel free to chime in with your favorites in the comments.
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Even if you don’t subscribe, you have to read Robert Genn’s newsletter today. Dry plot summary: He is painting plein aire in a town plaza somewhere in Mexico. He describes the scene around him, a conversation with a passerby, the sounds of mundane daily life.
Yet because of his practiced eye and cultivated voice, he makes this experience completely come alive with gorgeous sentences: “A two-litre bottle of Fresca came by with a four-year-old girl attached.” Isn’t that so much more evocative than an ordinary description of a little girl drinking a big soda?
Read. Observe your surroundings today. Then plan how you can translate that experience into your art — in words or in images — and go make something beautiful from something utterly ordinary.
“Codeine Dreams: Hole in the Sky” (2005)
An entry from my own file of past mistakes… in retrospect, not a bad image after all.
Today’s is the second in a blog series by Mark McGuinness, “Breaking Through Your Creative Blocks,” entitled “Fear of Getting It Wrong.” This one jumped out at me because I have been there oh-so-many times myself, and there are oh-so-many times worried fiber artists have written to the QuiltArt list asking “What am I doing wrong with this piece? Please take a look and give me your opinion.”
The post uses musicians and writers as the examples of creative people, but there is much there for us as visual artists as well. I especially like point #1:
“… do something to get out of your head and into your body. Your head is where all the worrying and judging and agonising happens. Your body is where the rhythms live, where your heartstrings are.”
Go read it. Then head to the studio and make a mistake today.
For everyone who has been following along with the Month Zero goal-setting, here is a gift for you:
Click on the image to download a PDF version. Print it out and post it on your wall.
Then head into 2010 knowing that you are a month ahead of the rest of the world… and that you don’t have to be perfect!
Happy New Year!
Art- and quilt-related posts. For other business-related topics, please visit my other blog.
