Statement
"I think the stream is always there, a current into which I tap at will. It is less a matter of "my" creativity than it is my being available to creativity. Something or someone wants to enter the world through us, and we are the portals that allow that entrance to take place."
~ Julia Cameron from 'The Sound of Paper'
If I'm perfectly honest I just paint for the pure joy of it.
The joy of losing myself in the moment, that feels like no time and lasts for
hours. And if I'm really, really honest, I spend almost as much time admiring the work as I do making it. Not because I think I'm that great (Well, you know, I don't want you to think I'm bigheaded or anything. Even if I am. Slightly.), but because as soon as I put down the brush and return to being just plain old me I think "How did I do that?".
It would seem that most artists feel like this - it is not I who create, but I am the one who allows creation to work through me - and even though that may sound like a grand statement, it's basically true. OK, so maybe when I'm sketching my coffee mug at Starbucks I'm not exactly a Vessel for the Muse. But everything I do, and everything I notice, all I see, read, hear and think leads me up to that moment when I suddenly, and always unexpectedly, lose myself in the stream... and when I look up I think "What happened here? Who did this? What does it mean?" and "Can I repeat this? Can I ever do anything as good as this again?!", and no one is more surprised than I am when I do.