This week, I have returned to one of my older passions–painting boldly and expressively. I have discovered that even though my 30-minute paintings are not loaded with the “real,” many people still like them because they are free.7 A Jar of Sunflowers – Jacki Kellum Acrylic Painting Completed in 30 Minutes Before I began…
Category: Fear
Fear Is the Artist’s Worst Enemy – It Causes Writer’s Block
Fear is the worst thing that can happen to anyone who hopes to create. Fear prevents the painter from painting, and it forces the writer to edit himself literally to death. Barbara de Angelis wrote an excellent treatise on Fear: [image credit Amazon] “Imagine that you had a person in your life who followed you…
Write First – Edit Later – Editing While Writing Causes Writer’s Block
I have talked to a number of people about what they are calling Writer’s Block, but I believe that they are confusing writing with editing. I believe that what many people call writer’s block is actually editor’s block. One of my best pieces of advice for writing is to remember this: There is a Time to…
Learning to Paint and to Write by Intuition
When I am painting and when I am writing, I consider it a great day when something within myself takes over and essentially completes my project for me. This gentle urging is intuition. It is the spark that helped Michelangelo release his sculptures from a piece of rock, and it is my writer’s voice and…
Learn to See with Your Spirit and Not Merely with Your Eyes
I often write about the importance of an artist’s or a writer’s or a thinker’s truly “seeing,” as opposed to merely looking.’ Even flies can look. Looking is nothing more than image recognition Seeing is a deeper thing. It has to do with perceiving and with the imagination and with empathy and feeling. Seeing things as they truly…
A Need for Perfectionism Sparks the Internal Editor that Destroys Both the Writer’s and the Artist’s Work
Yesterday, a Twitter discussion focused on the Internal Editor or the Self Editor which is crippling for writers and for visual artists, too. The quintessential writer Anne Lamott had something to say about Perfectionism. “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole…