Alice Mackenzie Swaim

Strength often comes from unexpected places.  We sometimes misjudge people when we only look at the outside.  Inside is what counts.  Have you ever met someone who you liked instantly only to find out he was not the person you thought he was?  Have you ever met a person who you thought was rude and uncaring only to discover she was very warm and giving?

We can easily look at large oak trees and see how strong they are.  They stand tall and their root system goes deep within the earth.  Many live to be 200 years old.  Some have lived over a thousand years.  They weather many storms.  And we can not deny that it does take courage to survive the hostile storms of time.  

Have you ever looked into the face of an old person with pity and hope never to be like her? Or have you wondered about the storms she has weathered and the courage it took to live the hard life she led?  We often misjudge the courage buried within the hearts of the people we meet.

Yet, it is the flower in spring that survives a late snow that draws our attention.  By nature, it is fragile and its life is short.  Though, it has a rare courage that cannot be denied — to hold its petals high in the face of unwanted cold.  We have all met that child who faces death with a courage we fail to see within ourselves.

As artists, writers and storytellers, we must look deep inside and see the truth beneath the surface.  We must find the courage to tell our story in words and images.  Do you have the courage found within the flower poking through the snow?  Are you as strong as the oak tree standing in your backyard?  Are you able to look truth in the face and share the pain you have felt?

Bob Marley

"When the root is strong, the fruit is sweet."

— Bob Marley

Jamaican Musician

1945 - 1981

How well do you know your roots?  On what other artists is your art build on?  Who are the artists who have influenced you?  On whose shoulders are you standing?  An artist needs to understand the history of his art.  He needs to know his roots.

How strong are your roots?  How deep are your roots?  Without roots the tree dies.  Without roots the plant withers.  Without roots there is no fruit.  Don't ignore your roots.  Don't ignore the traditions from which you come.  Are you watering your roots?  Are you growing as an artist?  Are you in touch with your roots?  

Here is Cedella Marley talking about her father.

Frederick Franck

"I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have not really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle."

— Frederick Franck

Dutch Painter, Sculptor, Author

1909 - 2006

What we know of the world we know through our senses.  Yet, we often spend so much time in our head with our thoughts that we don't experience the world around us.  Have you ever walked past a flower, a tree or a stream a hundred times and yet know nothing of the stream, or tree or flower.  What have you missed in the world around you because you are so busy thinking about your life, your problems or your family?  When you begin to see the tree as it is, will you paint it in a different way.  Franck also said, "Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world."  Are you rediscovering the world around you through your drawing?

Do you hear the conversations of your friends and family members or are you so busy thinking about what you are going to say that you fail to listen to them.  A writer of dialogue must listen to the language used by the people around him.  Do you see how the people around you dress?  The way they carry themselves?  How they move about the room?  It is through the behavior we see that we find the clues to who the person is.  And it is through the behavior we describe that our readers know our characters.

Joan Miro

"I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music."

— Joan Miro
Spanish Artist

1893 - 1993

Hand Catching a Bird
(1968)

Our lives are touched with color whether we are artists or not.  We are attracted to color and repulsed by color.  We wake to color in the morning and some of us dream in color.  We love the color of flowers in spring and summer.  We love the color of leaves in autumn.  Our lives our filled with color.  We often buy our clothes based on color.  We paint the walls of our houses with color.  We choose the color of the car we buy.  Color is an important part of our lives.  Chefs use color to make the meal appealing.  Advertisers use color to convince us to buy things.

In a study of the colors blue and red, scientists at the University of British Columbia discovered that red makes us more cautious and attentive to details while blue makes us more creative and receptive to new ideas.  Experiments showed that with a red background people performed as much as 31 percent better on tasks like proofreading.  When blue was used, people were more open to new ideas and creative solutions.

What are your favorite colors?  Do some colors make you happy?  What colors make you sad? What colors excite you?  How does color shape your art?  What colors are you attracted to in a painting?  How does color shape your writing?  Do you use color as part of your description?  How does color affect your music?  

Red Sun

Morihei Ueshiba

"Your heart is full of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout."

— Morihei Ueshiba

Founder of Aikido

Japanese Writer

1883 - 1969

Each of us is full of potential.  If you have within your heart the desire to create music, paintings, stories or poems, you also have within your heart the seeds of those paintings, songs, poems and stories.  The flowering of these seeds also depends on the soil in which they are planted.  Is it rich, fertile soil?  Or rocky, barren soil?  The amount of rain and sunshine is also important.

Is your heart ready to grow the paintings you are destined to paint?  Or the poems you are destined to write?  Or the stories you are destined to tell?  Only you can nurture the seeds within your heart.  Only you can pick the fruit from the trees your heart will grow.  Your creativity is a gift.  Are you using it wisely?  Or have you hidden it from others?  The choice is yours.

Diego Rivera

"Only the work of art itself can raise the standard of taste."

— Diego Rivera

Mexican Artist/Muralist

1886 - 1957

People talk of taste as if it was real.  It is an illusion of judgement.  Every work of art, every poem, and every story has value.  When people begin to label art as good or bad, they are creating false categories that are based on artificial judgements.  What the majority label as good today may be considered bad tomorrow.  You may like something or not like something which in itself is okay.  Liking or disliking reveals something about you.  There is nothing inherently bad or good within the work of art itself.  The sense of good or bad is in the eyes of the beholder.  Any judgement made about a work of art is actually a judgement of the person who made the statement.

While there may only be one person today who likes your art, it does not make the art bad.  Two hundred years from now the majority of people may consider it a masterpiece.  Taste is fickle and useless.

The Flower Carrier

Diego Rivera, the great Mexican Muralist,  painted a number of murals in the United States during the 1930's.  Edsel Ford hired him to paint a mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts which is still on view today.  John Rockefeller commissioned him to paint a mural in New York.  Since Rivera was a communist, he included a portrait of Lenin in the mural.  When Rockefeller demanded that he remove the portrait from the mural, Rivera refused.  Rockefeller had the mural destroyed.  In the 1930's, a portrait of Lenin was unacceptable to the American public taste.  A work of art was destroyed because the subject matter was unacceptable.  Three hundred years from now, most people probably will never had heard of Lenin and nobody will be offended.  Remember public taste is fickle and arbitrary.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world, I thank God I am alive."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

American Poet/Essayist

1803 - 1882

I am fortunate that I have a yard that is full of birds, squirrels and rabbits.  And occasionally, a deer or a family of ducks have found the time to visit.  And our yard has maple trees, a large old pin oak and a few blue spruce.  Even in a metropolitan city I can find nature close at hand.  As creative leaders, we can and should find inspiration in nature.  I am amazed at how strong and resilient Mother Nature is.  If you have ever observed grass poking up through a crack in the concrete, you understand what I mean.  Long after the last man or woman has passed onto a better place, Mother Nature will still be there.

For me, the ironic thing is that human beings talk about nature as if we are not a part of it, only observers.  In fact, we are very much a part of nature.  And contrary to the opinion of many, Mother Nature is stronger and tougher than man.  I remember reading a study of overcrowded deer on an island.  The overcrowding generated unusual behavior among the deer such as increased fighting, rape and homosexuality.  Nature sought to reduce the overpopulation through disease.  In the end nature will win so we need to enjoy it while we can.

Photograph by Johari King

As artists and writers, we need to find joy, solace and inspiration in nature.  We need to enjoy the sunsets and the sunrises.  We need to appreciate the changing of seasons from fall to winter to spring.  The squirrels and rabbits in my backyard bring me pleasure and laughter with their play.  I have seen rabbits play leap frog, jumping over each other.  I have watched squirrels chasing each other up a tree.  And you will find both the rabbits and the squirrels in my haiku and my poetry.


Here are a few of my haiku.  More of my haiku can be found at my website.


downtown Chicago
    a squirrel buries apples —
        warm autumn sun




Illinois farmland —
    pheasant scoots across the snow
        the pickup heads home




early morning —
    two robins play leap frog
        in the shadows




on the corn tassels
    a flock of purple martins. . . 
        summer sunset

Claude Monet

"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."

— Claude Monet

French Painter

1840 - 1926

Water Lilies 1906

Why did you become a painter, a writer or a storyteller?  Why did you start playing music and composing songs?  Why do you love to take photographs?  What drives you to be creative?  What is your story?  I began writing poetry when I was a junior in high school and I submitted my early poems as a paper for a social studies seminar.  My English teacher asked me why I had not shown them to her.  At the time I had not made the connection between writing and English class.  I wrote because it was a way to express my ideas on societal problems.  Why are you an artist?  I'd love to hear your story.

Morihei Ueshiba

"Contemplate the workings of this world . . . . Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely. . . . Everything — even mountains, rivers, plants and trees — should be your teacher."

— Morihei Ueshiba

Founder of Aikido

Japanese Author

1883 - 1969

Albert Camus

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."

— Albert Camus

French Novelist

1913 - 1960

My wife and I were sitting on the back porch today enjoying the autumn morning.  Autumn is my favorite month.  If I had to rank the seasons from most favorite to least, here is my ranking:  Autumn, Spring, Winter, Summer.  What is your favorite season?  As artists, writers and creative leaders, we are affected by the seasons.  I studied and wrote exclusively haiku for seven years and the key to understanding haiku lies in the seasons.   Many of us have lost touch with the seasons.  We live in heated and air-conditioned buildings where the environment is controlled.  The further we get from the farms and the fields, the more we lose touch with the individual nature of each season.  I like winter because it cleans the cobwebs out of my brain.  I love spring because of the renewal and rebirth.  Summer with its heat overwhelms me.  My brain melts once the temperature gets above 75 degrees.  Autumn, though, brings me back to myself and I reflect on the importance of life.

This quote from Camus, the French novelist, caught me by surprise this morning.  The phrase, "Every leaf is a flower," makes me see the world anew and I find it to be true.

Gerard de Nerval

"Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature."

— Gerard de Nerval

1808 – 1855