William Baziotes — The Process of Creation

Evolution is the way a poem happens for me. I don't know what the poem is about until I'm finished writing. The poem evolves as I write. I know there are writers who outline everything they do. They know what they are going to write every step of the way. For me, it does not work. I like not knowing. The excitement is in the writing. The same thing happens when I write a story or a novel. Only at the end do I know what I was writing about.  And even then I might not be sure.

When I travel I am the same way. I want to discover new places. My wife and I once were on a trip with another couple. They had everything planned down to the minute and became upset if we deviated from the plan because it put them behind schedule. I can't travel that way. The joy is in the discovery.

Art for me is also about discovery.  When I draw a mask, I never know what a mask will look like until I am finished.  The joy is in the process of creation. The joy is in not knowing where you are going. 

Zentangle 2016

I have been studying Zentangle, a meditative art form, for the last four years.  A basic principle of Zentangle art is that you don't plan your work.  The fun is in the exploration — of discovering where you should go.

One of the things I have learned over the years is that creative leaders have many different ways of working. What works for one person does not work for another. How do you work? Do you map out your story in advance of writing it? Do you know what your painting will look like before you start painting it? Are you confined by the expectations of yourself or others?

Henry Miller

I have found that one of the benefits of traveling is the opportunity to see the world through new eyes — to realize that there is more to life then the day-to-day petty challenges that I face.  Too often we become so involved in chopping down a tree that we fail to see that the world is filled with more trees than those on the tiny acre which we occupy.

Wandering the streets of new towns and cities and encountering new people changes our perspective of the world and our place within it.  We often realize that our problems and challenges are small and insignificant compared to those of other people.  We learn to see the world differently and through new eyes.

I have learned that taking the time to step away from my day-to-day challenges reduces the stress in my life and clears my head of the issues and problems that normally occupy center stage.

I discovered this my sophomore year in college.  My freshman year had been filled with concern about the problems and challenges facing the American people.  War was killing the youth of our nation as well as the men, women and children of Vietnam.  Riots were burning the hearts of our cities.  Martin Luther King, Jr and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated.  Young people were beaten in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic convention.  And I considered dropping out of school.

In September of 1968, I boarded a plane for Kingston, Jamaica with twenty other college students.  We spent 13 weeks immersed in the culture and history of the country as part of a Study-Service term abroad offered by our small church college.  We studied the Rastafarian movement, Spanish and British imperialism, banana plantations and Jamaican literature.  We spent seven weeks in a service project.

We did not read American newspapers or listen to American newscasts.  The problems in America faded slowly away.  The problems Jamaicans faced had less to do with race and more to do with economics.  War was not on the daily news.  Jamaicans were proud of their recent independence from Great Britain and believed they had a bright future.  The pace of life slowed and the stress of being a student in the turbulent sixties in America slowly faded away.  I began to see the world through new eyes.  

When I returned to the United States in December, the election was over and Nixon had won.  America still faced the same problems and challenges that it had when I left.  The world had not grown any better.  But I had changed.  I was still concerned about the issues, but I was calmer and understood that change took time.  I could not change the world, but I could change myself.  By stepping away, I had come to see the world differently.  I had come to see my place in the world with new eyes.

About Henry Miller
Henry Miller was born to German Lutheran parents in New York city in 1891.  He wrote several novels including Tropic of Cancer,  Tropic of Capricorn and Sexus.  He also painted 2,000 watercolors and played the piano.  He was married five times and died in 1980.

Harley King

Conversation is becoming a lost art.  People pass each other like shadows in the night, absorbed in their small worlds.  We seldom listen to the stories that people have to share about their lives.  We have little time for family and friends and rarely do we risk speaking to strangers.

Growing up in a small midwestern farming community, we left our doors unlocked and our cars running when we went to the post office.  Everybody knew everyone else and rarely did we meet a stranger.  Our conversations were filled with stories, gossip and laughter.

Yet, today I live in a much different world.  I lock the doors of my car even when it sits in my driveway and I always lock the doors of my house even when I am home.  And most of the people I meet are strangers and rarely do we speak.

Life is about the relationships we develop with family, friends and even strangers on the paths that we choose to travel.  Some of the best conversations that I have had in my life have happened on an airplane with someone I had never met and will never encounter again.  

With strangers, we often open up and share our stories in ways that we do not with family and friends.  We know that the strangers are passing through our lives and that it is unlikely that we will meet again.  When we listen to stories of strangers, there is so much we can learn about the world and the people that inhabit it.  We will often find that we are alike and have much in common.

Listening to the stories of others can spark our creativity and make us better writers and artists.  Something they say may plant a seed that will grow and bear fruit.  Something they say may free us from the chains that bind our thinking.  Listening to the stories of strangers will give us small moments of pleasure and joy.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know countries, know people.  Let your memory be your travel bag."

 

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Russian Novelist

1918 - 2008

Here in America we are a nation of buyers.  Buying drives our economy and puts money in our pockets.  Money is circular by nature, always coming and going, saying hello and saying goodbye.  We have accumulated so many goods and products that we now have a reality TV show about the hoarders in our midst -- people who can't let go. 

And along comes Solzenitsyn who says to own only what you can carry.  Wow!  How many people are ready to live that lifestyle?  Travel light.  Worldly goods are of little value.  What is of value is the knowledge you gain and the memories that keep you warm on those cold winter nights.  What baggage are you carrying around that you need to let go of so you can travel lighter?

Harold S. Kushner

"If we put our soul into our work, if, rather than just going through the motions, what we do flows from the deepest part of our being, then after a burst of creativity, we need to replenish our souls."

— Harold S. Kushner

American Rabbi, Author

1935 -

Sometimes we need to rest — to replenish our spirit.  We cannot work all the time.  How do you replenish your spirit — restore your energy?  Exercise?  Walking?  Reading?  Visiting friends?  Loafing?  Good farmers know the importance of leaving a field fallow so as to restore the nutrients in the soil.  How do you restore the nutrients in your soul?  Do you take the time to be with yourself without the noise and chaos of the world in which you live?  Do you spend time with your soul in meditation and prayer?  Have you learned how to relax — to slow the pace of your life?  Take time today to pause for a few minutes and listen to the spirit within your flesh.  Find comfort in the small acts like the dance of a child, the breeze in the trees, the scampering of a squirrel or the hug of a friend?  Gently love the world in which you find yourself.

Harold S. Kushner wrote a book, The Lord Is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-Third Psalm, in which he meditates on the meaning of the twenty-third psalm.  The words I quoted above come from the chapter entitled: He Restoreth My Soul.  Kushner tells the story of a group of people who were on safari in Africa and hired porters to carry their supplies.  After three days the porters insisted on stopping for a day to rest.  The porters claimed that they were stopping not because they were tired, but because they had walked too far too fast and they needed time for their souls to catch up.  Have you traveled too fast and left your soul too far behind?  Do you need to wait for your soul to catch up?

As a speaker, I travel a lot — both by car and by plane.  I am currently in the midst of five weeks of travel.  Every time I return home, it takes me a day or two to renew my spirit and allow my soul to catch up.  And sometimes I feel like my soul does not catch up with my body before I am back on the road chasing the tiger.  In my case, my writing of poetry helps my soul to find its way back to the body and restore my sense of who I am.  




The Twenty-Third Psalm


The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul.
He guides me in straight paths for His Name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil
For Thou are with me.
Thy rod and Thy Staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil,
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

William Baziotes

"Each painting has its own way of evolving . . . When the painting is finished, the subject reveals itself."

— William Baziotes

American Painter

1912 - 1963

I know this is the way a poem happens for me.  I don't know what the poem is about until I'm finished writing.  The poem evolves as I write.  I know there are writers who outline everything they do.  They know what they are going to write every step of the way.  For me, it does not work.  I like not knowing.  The excitement is in the writing.  The same thing happens when I write a story.  Only at the end do I know what I was writing about.

Cyclops
(1947)

My drawing of masks is the same way.  I never know what a mask will look like until I am finished.  Art for me is also about discovery.  The joy is in the process of creation.  The joy is in not knowing where you are going.  

When I travel I am the same way.  I want to discover new places.  My wife and I once were on a trip with another couple.  They had everything planned down to the minute and became upset if we deviated from the plan because it put them behind schedule.  I can't travel that way.  The joy is in the discovery.

One of the things I have learned over the years is that writers have many different ways of working.  What works for one person does not work for another.  How do you work?  Do you map out your story in advance of writing it?  Do you know what your painting will look like before you start painting it?

Paulo Coelho

"We must never stop dreaming.  Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body."

— Paulo Coelho

Brazilian Novelist

1947 -

What are your dreams?  What would you like to do?  Where would you like to go?  What places would you like to visit?  I would love to visit China because of the history and the past civilizations.  I want to Japan because of my interest in haiku.  I want to visit Peru because of the Inca civilization.  I have traveled to 45 of the 50 states in the United States.  I have been fortunate to step foot on the soil of Jamaica, Canada and Mexico.  For me as a creative leader, visits to other places stir my imagination and allow me to see the world in new ways.  Again, I ask what are your dreams?  Are you feeding your soul?  Do your dreams give you nourishment?