Does Your Work Make A Difference?
I thought you might be tired of seeing photos of record breaking snowfalls for the Mid-Atlantic region of the US, so I have not posted any here. We had 30 inches at our house on top of about 8 from earlier in the week. We are told it is very possible to expect 10 to 20 inches tomorrow, too. I love the snow!
I recently came across this quote from Maya Angelou:
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
When I thought about that, I knew I had heard a similar thought expressed about love. It went something like this: the more you give love away, the more love you have to give. It made me think about how using one’s creativity is very much an expression of love. We are putting our heart and soul in the work we do.
Recently, I was sharing with a friend about how I sometimes paint in response to disaster, but I wasn’t sure why I did it as it never helped anyone. She responded back to me that I did not know it did not help anyone even if the painting still sat in my studio. Her thought was the production of a painting was like a prayer and we never know where or how that energy makes a difference in the world. I am so grateful for having this very wise friend. She not only made me feel so much better about painting what came out of me, but she encouraged me to move forward with just that kind of work.
When I think about these ideas of generating creativity by creating, having more love the more you give it away and my paintings being like a prayer when I produce them, it absolutely let’s me know I am so on the right path here.
Do you have these kinds of things which bring to light a true knowing you are doing what you are supposed to be doing with your work? Can you share some examples of what makes it so right for you?
Have a Beautiful Week, Keep Creating those Prayers and Sharing Love!
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There are 12 Comments to "Does Your Work Make A Difference?"
Oh, this is a question which needs more thoughts, and feelings. I’ll postpone my thinking about this to tomorrow morning, this is so very interesting. I made a note on my desk not to forget this! Have a great day, for me it’s good night:)
Okay Andrea! I am sure I know the answer here, but I am also more than interested in what you have to say! Very interested! Sleep Well!
Hi Kim, I’m back again to think some more about “do I know if I do what I’m supposed to be doing?” This is such a difficult question, I sure sometimes have doubts, but less with time. Today I talked with one of my best friends, whom I seldom see caues she lives in Germany. We do not talk often on the phone, but when we do, it always lasts at least 30 minutes to an hour, until my left ear hurts, cause I only can phone with my left ear, LOL!
She is not an artist, well she is in her garden:) but she doesn’t paint. Several of my paintings hang in her beautiful house near Heidelberg. She also goes to artfairs once a year and buys art. So, she told me, as she does every time we speak, how she loved my work and told me I was brave to be so disciplined (wow) in my artistic work. This seemed like the confirmation to something I had written spontaneously yesterday, in the Metro:
“Why do we have to get things done?
Because we are in this world for a purpose, it can’t be otherwise. We are not here to sit and only contemplate. We have to be active as artists. We are born into this “modern” world, where we don’t have to gather and hunt anymore, so what shall we do? If we are unhappy, there is (has to be) another purpose for us than make money to buy food. We have to create. Make Art. And get it out there, to those who need it. Cause our art touches them. So, we cannot just sit there and let time go by, watch the tide. ”
So, I think we create vibrations with our art, they reach out and touch other people. And perhaps not only through the eyes, but just through the air. Why not? I mean, a radio works with waves and transmits vibrations, no? Ok, those are audible, but I’m sure some of the inaudible vibrations leave their traces too…
Hello Andrea, your comment here is absolutely touching. As you probably know, I completely agree with all you have to say. Yes, I do believe we send out amazing energy into the universe and it has meaning to many we will probably never even know. Of course we have doubts, but don’t you think that is what helps us to make special connections to learn more about ourselves and to understand what we truly believe?
Your dear friend from Heidelberg is so very right about you and your bravery and dicipline. The thing is look how long it has taken you to arrive at this point. Consider all of the explorations you have made and how you have taken risks and also played it safe. Think of how your art would be different if one single thing changed. All of these things have come together to form a complete package…and throughout it all, you have been aware of the precise information you need to bring your work to this point. The greatest aspect is you are continuing to do this very thing – it has become a part of your life. How do I know this? What you wrote in the Metro tells a great story about the life of Andrea, the German Artist Living in Paris who at once reflects and looks forward.
It seems to me, when you can do this effectively, clearly your work and your life (because let’s face it, when you are an artist these are honestly the same thing) can only go out to do good in this world. When you give your own life purpose, it seems to me that living (work) also encourages others to find their purpose.
YOU have taught me well how art creates vibrations on many planes – while we are making the art as well as when someone observes it. We just never know the true perceptions of others, but my guess is it is very different from what the artist felt when they created the piece. Your comment reminded me of something I wrote recently when thinking about some of this, ‘When we create it is like a prayer (it leaves us), but when creations are observed it is like meditation (it is absorbed by the viewer).’
Thank you so much, Andrea! You are giving me so much more to think about!
This is a lovely conversation between you two beautiful people and artists. I would have to give this some thought. I certainly think neither my art or my life makes much of a difference, although i do agree that we never know what effect what we do or say has on the universe. We might get a glimmer now and then, but much more happens that we can’t know exactly. But I think it is inside me that I kind of feel who cares if I paint or write, really. I would rather do these things than scrub floors or work on an assembly line so it matters in that way. But yet it doesnt matter. Not to o much would happen for anyone but myself if I ceased to write or paint.
Yet, of course I am desirous of doing this and following in the footsteps of you two brave and creative women. Why? Where does that desire come from. I think in part creating is a way I try to make sense of a world that doesnt hold a lot of sense and can sometimes feel overwhelming with all the tragedies and wars and so on. I try to get a handle and create a little beauty if I can. Not a very coherent answer but I feel all you say here is rather multilayered and complex. Gosh, I wish we could meet for a cup of tea in some Parisian cafe and talk in person!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay Sweet Suki, when can you leave for Paris? Now that would be so nice to have this conversation in person! NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!
Now, I want to dispute you whole heartedly! Your art and your life makes a HUGE difference to many people. Look at the followers you have on your blog…people wait breathlessly to see what you will write about or share next! You share so freely on so many levels others cannot. I say it is time you give credit where credit is due. You touch many lives and mean a great deal to people on this earth. Your sharing and love brings joy to many more people than you know…please trust me on this and believe it! So what, though, if we do not know things exactly…what if that knowing comes to us as feelings and knowings rather than factual exactness? Some would say only facts matter, but I know they are wrong. As a matter of fact
, I am quite sure you can find a “fact” which supports just about anything you wish.
You know that feeling inside yourself, Suki, which drives you to create? That is the truth and that is real and that is just why your creativity matters so much! When your work matters to the core of yourself, then it matters to the entire universe. In reality, it just might be when others are not connecting with themselves that it appears it doesn’t matter…in truth and in the grand scheme of the universe, though, it matters.
What you say is very, very interesting because the goal of Marc Rothko was to ‘take people where they would recover their humanity.’ according to Simon Schama (from the Power of Art) and isn’t that what you want? To help people recover their humanity by making sense of the world and bringing beauty? I think so, and you are successful. In this same bit, Schama suggests that one of Rothko’s issues was that he constantly struggled with his own success. Now that happens on many levels and some do not struggle with that at all, but I think it is important to be aware of that happening if you have the tendency. Don’t struggle with the possiblity of your own success on what ever level that might be, Suki!
I love this conversation. Come back and talk some more. When did you say we were going to Paris? We will let Andrea choose the cafe.
This is along the same lines as when you create you are putting a little piece of your soul into your work, and what can be a more giving gift than a piece of you? Maybe that painting or effort doesn’t help someone directly, maybe it doesn’t help today, but sometime, somewhere, someone…it will have a cause.
Hello Roberta! We talk about the idea of putting part of yourself into each piece you create, and how that truly is what makes fine art. You are right in some way it truly helps not only those who view it and experience it, but also those who create! How wonderful is that?
Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope to see you again, soon!
this needs a closer read….
kizkiz
yvette
Okay, yvette! I am glad you stopped by and hope you will return with some of your wonderful insights! Thanks!
Your friend’s take on studio work as a kind of prayer resonates with me. She articulated that well. I had a similar response to a blogging friend who’s been down in the dumps but made herself do one of those “wordzzles,” those word puzzle thingies in which people make a story out of random, assigned words. I couldn’t find the right phrases to explain why I thought that even her doing that was making a difference in the world. Now I know, thanks to your post. Her stories had a positive spin, despite her funk, and I believe it was her way of sending prayers out to heal the world.
Hello San, it is amazing when you think of it how so many things can be a prayer. I think you are right, writing can very much be that way, too. I am sure there are other forms of creation which also form those expressions sent out to the universe. I have had several conversations with several people about this subject and I keep wondering if a way to define all of this as the act of focusing outward (even when you are working from deep within) as when we paint or write or whatever is the prayer, while the act of focusing inward as when we observe a painting or listen to music which resonates with us is meditation. I don’t know why that continues to return to me or even why it is important. Whatever the case, I have said it!
So often we have these experiences and do not understand them until much later. Just like with your friend, you knew inside but were not sure why until now. I thank my friend every day for these wise insights! Now I think of how much she has touched others.
Again, thank you so much for sharing, San!