A Year of Living Creatively

Happy December 1st! As the year draws to a close, I reflect on what has been accomplished, what has been created and the emotional roller coaster ride that the creative process takes one on. And, yes, I believe deep in my very being, every cell of me, that the joys and rewards of being a Creative far out way any challenge it brings. In fact, the challenges present opportunities for growth, understanding and expansion of the mind, heart and spirit.

So, today I honor and celebrate You, my fellow Creatives, and the unique path that we travel and the blessed mission we have been assigned. Enjoy one of my favorite critiques of the creative process from Elizabeth Gilbert.

Pearls of Wisdom

‘The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them…a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create – so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off… They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.’

     

Thank you Pearl S. Buck and Happy National Writing Month to you all.

   

xoxox

Leasa

November is National Novel Writing Month!

Okay, two posts in one day! In keeping with my previous post, I am taking action and have signed up to write a novel next month on the National Novel Writing Month website. Yes, I commit to answer to an external force - the National Novel Writing Month family or 'NaNoWriMo' -  everyday for a month starting November 1st!

Check out the website. It's really fun. And then sign up to write a novel next month at:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

I have friends in Austin, Paris and Baltimore who have signed on to write a novel in November. Yippee, my own little writing group! Won't you join us? I will tell you what I will be working on in a future post. Curious, are you?

xoxox
Leasa

Alice Walker's Writing Wisdom

I confess - I have been a reluctant writer. When words and ideas are flowing, it's extraordinary but it does not necessarily come easy. I am not one of those people that has to write every day or die, one who lives to write. And I loath re-writes! In other words, I can find many other things to do rather than sit at my little humble table and set fingers to keys. Writing is, for me, a labor of...I wouldn't say "love"...but rather "the love of word magic," how they fall out of the air into my mind and on to the paper.

Alice Walker expresses perfectly what I have grown to understand about the act of writing. One must have faith in one's gifts. If you show up, get the work done and you will have won. I claim this as my meditation. It relieves the pressure to create and writers actually have a lot of help. I recall attending a panel discussion in which Walker described living in New York as she was just starting The Color Purple. One day she was standing in a forest of Manhattan skyscrapers looking up at a small slice a available sky and heard a voice in her head say, "What is this shit?!" It was one of her characters speaking in no uncertain terms on her feelings about life in the big city and she was not impressed. I like to think it was Celie. New York City was cramping her style, her story bouncing off all that stone and concrete. Walker said at that moment she knew that to write The Color Purple she had to move to the country, be among trees, flowers, grasses, nature's beauty. Soon thereafter she relocated to Northern California where she now lives and works.

I always loved that story, the magic of it, the spiritual help that was so strongly present in Walker's telling of the story. Since then I have heard many writers describe the phenomenon of their characters speaking to them and often correcting them. That is the gift that all writers and Creatives have available to them; a transcendental energy that speaks, directs and guides our hearts and hands. It tells us what happened next...and then...and then. All we have to do is show up. I am meant to write and I commit to showing up. Dragging my reluctant self to my writing table, sit on my slightly uncomfortable chair and getting the work done. The stories that we each collect in a lifetime is our own unique truth to express and share. We are obliged to do so.

xoxox
Leasa

Our Creative Ancestry

Ancient San Rock Painting 

We were born to create, to express our innate selves with paint, cloth, words, images. It is our genetic heritage. In the past, as often is today, making art was an act of reverence, the spirit expressing its deepest reflection. Ancient artists, our ancestors, who recreated their world on cave walls leave us awed with wonder. The stories the images tell intrigue, amaze and confound us. Were our fore fathers and mothers so different from us in their need to create, to share their inner world with such beautiful mark making? Could they have known that ten of thousands of years hence we would be humbled before the sheer magnificence and power of their creations? How lucky we are to stand in the shadow of their timeless brilliance, knowing that we, too, have access to the same creative spark that gave birth to these exquisite images that have lasted for millennia.

A recent discovery reveals another layer of how these rock painters created their masterpieces. Here is the New York Times article about a 100,000-year-old artist workshop found in the Blombos Cave in South Africa, home of the Mother of Us All.  For the Creative, the implications of this discovery is staggering and very inspiring:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/science/14paint.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2 

Ancient San Rock Painting

I came across this thought-provoking blog entry by Ishtar Babilu Dingir. In it she reflects on our growing understanding of who these cave artists were, what inspired their work, and how the scientific approach to studying rock art falls far short of grasping its intrinsic value to our knowledge of age-old shamanic traditions:

http://ishtarsgate.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/the-stained-glass-windows-of-ice-age-cathedrals/


xoxox
Leasa

Love Has No Recession - Love the Concept

The Creative Alliance has been abuzz the last week in anticipation of the Kindred the Family Soul concert tonight. And having just attended the second show, I know why. Married couple Fatin Dantzler and Aja Graydon are the founding members of Kindred the Family Soul. Their six-member group plays music reminiscent of the the very best of  the r&b and soul music of the 70s and 80s. All 140 of us rocking to a single beat with a solid bass line that had everyone in their feet, fancy shoes and all. But that's only part of what makes Kindred the Family Soul so very appealing and inspiring.

Their new release - Love Has No Recession - expresses their guiding philosophy of love and family. It's about commitment, partnership and joy in the presence of each other. One could see the pride they had for one another and what they have created together, not the least of which is six beautiful children and that energy permeated the audience. It was an amazing show. At the end we poured out of the theater happy and full of laughter and lining up to purchase cd's. Music, creativity and commerce at its most awesome.

Take a moment to visit their website, check out them out on their on-line reality show and buy their music! Live in the grove.

http://kindredthefamilysoul.com/

xoxox
Leasa

Notes on a Gladiator Artist

I am sitting in the main gallery of the Creative Alliance at the Patterson. There are no activities scheduled today. It is quiet, save for the hum of the overhead lights. On three walls there are 10 feet by 100 feet of exquisite charcoal drawings that are the Joseph Norman Middle Passage Mural. With more room, all 150 feet would have been shown. As the project's creative collaborator, the Mural's installation is the culmination a two year dialog with the artist, hours of research and contemplation, followed by more dialog. For the artist it has been ten long, arduous years of hard work and self-exploration and discovery. Now, at last The Middle Passage Mural: Joseph Norman exhibition opens on Saturday, September 24 in Baltimore's famed Creative Alliance at the Patterson.

I have watched and assisted Joseph execute this monumental project and I am left with one burning question: What manner of man entertains the notion of creating a mural that measures 10 feet high by 100 feet long, with only charcoal, paper and a little ink - and then does it - in less than a total of 21 days? Joseph Norman, that's who, the baby son of Reverend and Mrs. Lloyd Norman, Sr., may they eternally rest in peace.

Joseph Norman is a paradox. He is a  man of extremes and focused passion. A trained athlete, he approaches his work with the discipline of a gladiator. I have seen him address it like a warrior, wrestling an opponent to the ground. He measures himself against the greats and resides happily in the shadow of his beloved Picasso, Pablito. On other days his marks emerge on the page as pure poetry, hundreds and hundreds of delicate poems overflowing with of love and concern for his subject. Thousands of sketch books attest to his unrelenting dedication to his art and his library and scholarship to his discipline of being a professional artist.

It is in these extremes that live the magic of his work. It has been said that he makes beautiful pictures about ugly things. It doesn't get much uglier than the Middle Passage, the forced, violent movement of an estimated 9 to 12 million African men, women and children to the New World as slaves, a practice that persisted for hundreds of years. And yet here I sit in the midst of  profoundly poignant images, a mural of suffering and transformation that is in its own way calming and reassuring. It is art and creative expression at its very best and being a part of its creation has been a tremendous gift.

Perhaps it is the truth that there is no good without bad that makes Joseph Norman's work so powerful. In symbols, hieroglyphs and metaphor of extreme beauty he skillfully recounts the horrific events of the Middle Passage. And as with the language of symbols, his masterful markings allows a viewer to engage with the Middle Passage on a different, more visceral level. It allows us to acknowledge our own paradoxes, the extremes in our own lives within which exists the potential for great beauty.  

In his hand, very basic materials - charcoal and paper - are marked into something of beauty and deep meaning. In the Middle Passage Mural, these marks tell a story of the tragedy and suffering of a people, torn from all that was familiar to them. The beauty of the Mural is that it takes the story of these Ancestors and their descendants to an elevated place of truth, honor and dignity for all to witness.

For more videos, pix and info please visit these sites:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Wyzzest?feature=mhee#p/a
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Joseph-Normans-Middle-Passage-Mural-Project/192305637505824
http://creativealliance.org/events/eventitem2724.html

xoxox
Leasa

Greetings from The Cre8tive Life

An Artist's Life   c. L. Fortune, 2010

I've been giving a lot of thought to creativity, the joy of it, it's messiness and how much I love belonging to The Tribe of Creatives. These are my people, a special crew with a very specific assignment - to live and make art. To be the art you make. How incredibly amazing is that?!! Being the vessel through which images, words, music, structures, and mad notions travel into existence comes with  challenges of any birth. It isn't always easy but the ultimate joy and satisfaction more than compensates for any passing difficulty. And would you really have it any other way? Okay,  more steady income and more time to create, for sure.

The Cre8tive Life blog is my way of honoring the creative process and those who live the creative life. Here you will find artist interviews, videos, photographs, poems and flash fiction and things I find compelling.  I welcome you to share your story as a Creative, other blogs and events and I will post them here ~ with pleasure. Let's have some fun!

xoxox
Leasa