Marcus Tullius Cicero

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Roman Philosopher and Author

106 BC - 43 BC

Creative leaders are lifelong learners.  Learning helps to fill the subconscious with fodder for creative thinking.  One important source of learning is books.  Creative leaders spend time reading even if it is only 10 or 15 minutes a day.  I encourage creative leaders to read novels, poetry, biographies, memoirs and history.  The more you read, the more you know.  I usually average about one book a month and I usually read 15 - 20 minutes a day.  I also listen to recorded books while I drive.  Listening to books is a powerful way to learn.  

If you are not a reader, it is never to late to start.  Develop the habit of reading daily.  Set a goal for how many books you will read in 2011 and keep track of the books you read on goodreads.com, a great online method for keeping track of books you read.  And you also will meet other people who read.  If you are looking for some novels to read, I highly recommend the novels I have listed on this blog.

Peter Ustinov

"The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come."

– Peter Ustinov

British actor/novelist

1921 - 2004

No matter what age you are, the best is yet to come.  No matter where you are in your career, the best is yet to come.  Each day we live provides us with new opportunities, new ways to grow and new things to learn.  Colonel Harlan Sanders was sixty-five when he opened his first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.  Thomas Edison was sixty-seven when he reinvented the phonograph.  At seventy-seven, Grandma Moses began painting.  At eighty, Jessica Tandy won an Oscar for the film, Driving Miss Daisy.  Winston Churchill wrote A History of the English-Speaking Peoples at age 82.  Peter Ustinov acted in the movie, Luther, at age 83.  At ninety, Picasso was still producing drawings and engravings.  At age 93, P. G. Wodehouse was working on his 97th novel when he died.  Remember the best is yet to come.  

Alice Walker

"Don't wait around for other people to be happy for you.  Any happiness you get you've got to make yourself."

— Alice Walker

American Novelist/Poet

1944 - 

The appreciation and support of others may be short-lived and fickle.  We need to believe in ourselves and our work.  Our happiness and satisfaction must come from within.  We must learn to care for ourselves and encourage our artistic work.  The world may not understand what we do or why we do it, but we must find the inner strength to keep going.  Pat yourself on the back today and give yourself a compliment.

Bill Moyers

"Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous."

— Bill Moyers

American Journalist

1934 -

Most artists and writers will tell you that there are periods where the work can be boring, dull and mundane.  You feel like everything is on hold and then inspiration arrives in a flash as the light bulb goes off and the sun explodes.  In between the lightning bolts of creativity are hours and days of routine and monotonous work.  But when moment of insight arrives, the heart races to keep up with the mind and elation abounds.  And you know the long wait was worth it.

Paul Gauguin

Self Portrait, 1893

"Poor artist!  You gave away part of your soul when you painted the picture which you are now trying to dispose of."

— Paul Gauguin

French Artist

1848 - 1903

Tahitian Women on the Beach
1891

The ying and the yang for most artists is the conflict between the passion for creating and the need to eat, between time spend painting and time spend selling.  How do we balance these two opposites?  Most of us would prefer to paint, to write and to compose, but we also have the need to feed our families and to a lesser extent ourselves.  Some people take jobs teaching.  Others work in business.  The poet Wallace Stevens spent his career as a lawyer for an insurance company.  How do you balance the need for creating art and the need for cash to live?

Mother Teresa

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

— Mother Teresa

Catholic Nun/Humanitarian

1910 - 1997

In my experience, I have often found writers and artists to be judgmental and critical of each other's works.  I have participated in writing groups where a writer would present his work and then the others would proceed to tear it apart under the guise of constructive criticism.  Beginning writers and artists do not need criticism.  They need support and encouragement.  For established writers, every new book is a new beginning.  For established artists, every blank canvas is a new beginning.  Both need encouragement and support.  Constructive opinion even at its best is only opinion and often the opinion is way off base.  At its worst, criticism can be vicious and absurd.  As critics we often bring our own prejudices to the table and attempt to impose them on others.  In the words of Mother Teresa, we need to criticize and judge other creative leaders less and love them more.  Look for the good in the creative work and praise the good.  

Ferruccio Busoni

"The function of the creative artist consists of making laws, not in following laws already made."

— Ferruccio Busoni

Italian Composer, Pianist

1866 - 1924

When I teach people how to speak, I always tell them to learn the rules of speaking, but to understand that they can break every rule.  Speaking is an art, not a science.  Creative leaders understand that there are rules and techniques governing their art, but they have the right to break the rules.  Creative leaders are willing to take a risk and attempt something that lesser artists are unwilling to risk.  If you study the long history of the arts, you will see the pattern — every generation breaks the rules of the older generations and makes new rules.  Think of the changes the impressionists, the cubists and the abstract expressionists  made to art in the last 150 years.  Think about the rules that writers and musicians have broken in the past and continue to break today.  What risks are you taking with your art?  What rules have you been willing to bend and break?  What new rules have you put in their place.  In art, nothing is absolute.

Henri Matisse

"Creation is the artist's true function; where there is no creation there is no art."

— Henri Matisse

French Artist

1869 - 1954

Matisse, Woman With A Hat, 1905

Most of us are drawn to the arts because of a need to create something, to express what we are feeling.  Those who stay involved with some art form, such as writing, painting or acting, must also learn technique, but if in the study of techniques we forget creativity, we have lost touch with the purpose of art.  Creativity is the very heart of what we do.  The mastery and perfection of technique must never be more important then the creative impulse.  The art we create must be fresh and new, not boring and repetitious.

Muriel Rukeyser

"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms."

— Muriel Rukeyser

American Poet

1913 - 1980

The universe is alive with story.  Without story, much of what we as humans know would be meaningless.  Through story we understand the world around us.  Through story we understand our lives and why we have lived the way we lived.  Story provides meaning to the events that have happened and the sorrows we have experienced.  As creative leaders, we are driven to share our story whether that be through a poem, a painting, a novel, a song, a sculpture, a film or a dance.  What stories are you telling in your art?  What stories are you telling that define who you are?  Our lives are filled with story.  Share yours today.

Santoka Taneda

"Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life."

— Santoka Taneda

Japanese Haiku Poet 

1882 - 1940

What is your painting, your story, your dance, or your song?  Is it a shriek?  A howl? A sigh? A yawn?  Or is it the deep breath of life?  As creative leaders we need to be creating art that produces the deep breath of life.  Art that is just a shriek or a howl leaves people feeling empty.  Art that is a sigh or a yawn puts people to sleep.  Our art needs to come from deep within and we need to breathe into it the breath of life .

Leonardo Da Vinci

Mona Lisa

"The first goal of a painter is to be able to make a simple flat surface appear like a relief . . . this is done by the correct use of light and shade.  The one who can do this deserves the most praise."

— Leonardo da Vinci

Italian Artist

1452 - 1519

The arts are about illusion.  The painter paints an object, a person or landscape and wants us to believe that it represents the real thing.  The writer tells a story and wants us to believe that what he is telling us is real.  A musician plays sounds and wants us to believe the notes tell a story.  If we are good at our craft, people will believe what we show and tell them.  Leonardo reportedly took four years to paint the Mona Lisa.  Perfecting illusion takes time.

Kahlil Gibran

"In every winter's heart there is a quivering spring, and behind the veil of each night there is a smiling dawn."

— Kahlil Gibran

Lebanese Artist and Poet

1883 - 1931

Hope is an essential gift of living.  Without hope, we are wandering through a dark, desolate world.   In even our worst moments, we need to remember that life will get better.  As artists and writers, we need to believe that the next painting or the next poem will be our best.    If we quit now, we may never know what is around the next corner.  Keep dreaming.  Keep hoping.  Keep believing.

Zelda Fitzgerald

"Nobody has ever measured, even the poets, how much a heart can hold."

— Zelda Fitzgerald

American Novelist, Artist

1900 - 1948

The heart is stronger than we think and able to recover from some of the most painful sorrows.  People through the centuries have seen and heard some of the ugliest behavior of mankind from starvation to murder to genocide.  And writers and artists have produced great work out of this pain.  When I was in college in the midst of the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement, I thought the world would explode within five years.  More the forty years later the earth still circles the sun and men and women continue to suffer and survive.  How much can your heart hold?  How much pain have you suffered?  How much love have you given?  How much of your heart can you see in your work?

Pablo Picasso

"Art is the lie that reveals the truth."

— Pablo Picasso

Spanish Artist

1881 - 1973

When we stop and think about it, we realize that art is not real.  It is an attempt to create  reality, but it will never be reality.  As Picasso says, it is a lie.  Whether you are a writer or a painter, the world you are creating in your stories and pictures is not real.  But this lie can reveal the truth of the world that cannot be perceived in reality.  Now there is the paradox:  the lie reveals the truth.  

The question you must ask yourself:  Does my art reveal the truth?  Or is it only an illusion?  Only a lie?  Art that does not reveal the truth remains a lie.  What is the truth in your writing?  In your painting?  What insight do you have into life and living?

Here is one of my favorite Picasso paintings.  I have written a poem, Sing A Sad Song, about the painting and the truth that it reveals.

The Old Guitarist, 1903, Oil on Panel, 122.9 X 82.6 cm. Pablo Picasso, Spanish (1881 - 1973), The Art Institute of Chicago, Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1926.253.

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman

"I was an avid reader of history and particularly the lives of great men and women.  I found that some were born to greatness, some attained it by accident, and some worked for it."

— Harry S. Truman

American President, Author

1884 - 1972

As creative leaders we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before.  What do you know of the lives and works of these earlier artists, writers, musicians and storytellers?  What were the challenges they faced and the difficulties they overcame?  What creative ideas did they have that have made our work easier?  What knowledge did they have that has now been lost to the dustbins of history?  Which painters, writers and musicians are your heroes?

Most people are not born to greatness.  They usually work hard to achieve what they desire, but in the end the fame they find is often by accident.  So my advice is to work hard every day and enjoy what you do.

Piet Mondrian

Composition #2 Piet Mondrian

"Everyone knows that even a single line may convey an emotion."

— Piet Mondrian

Dutch Painter

1872 - 1944

The line is one of the smallest elements of a drawing or a painting.  The line is the beginning of what is to be.  And in that beginning the line conveys the emotion to come, the story to be told.  All art begins some where.  For the artist it is the line.  For the writer it is the word.  For the musician it is the note.  And the line becomes the skeleton, the core of what is created.

I recently discovered the drawings of Michael Kirby.  He has the powerful ability to convey emotion with simple lines.  Check out his blog at:

http://redyellowbluemakeyou.blogspot.com/2010/11/some-more-rapid-sketches.html

W. S. Merwin

"We are the echo of the future."

— W. S. Merwin

American Poet

1927 -

Wow!  These seven words can change the way we see ourselves.  We see ourselves as flesh and bones and full of life, but in the big picture to those who come after us we are only an echo of the person we were.  We think everything that is happening to us now is important and wonder if we will be able to survive the onslaught of problems that we face.  But in the blink of an eye that is our lives we are gone.  And as artists, writers and musicians all that is left are the works we created — the footprints we left behind.  The echo of person who was us.

John Sloan

"Color is like music.  The palette is an instrument that can be orchestrated to build form."

— John Sloan

American Artist

1871 - 1951

The arts are interrelated and interconnected.  If you are a writer, you can learn from artists and musicians.  Don't just study writers, study artists.  Learn to paint and it will make your writing better.  If you are an artist, you can learn from film and theater.  Learn to act and it might make your painting better.  Why do you think some actors turn to painting or writing when they are not engaged in making films?  Don't feel you have to limit yourself to one form of art.  Explore them all.  Do you have writer's block? Go paint a picture.  Don't know what to paint?  Play the guitar.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Finish each day and be done with it.  You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

American Writer & Poet

1803 - 1882

Sometimes we let our worries, doubts and fears control us.  There is nothing we can do to change yesterday and the things that happened.  Yes, we may alter the consequences by apologizing, but the action is still there.  Worry is creative imagination.  We create all kinds of scenes and stories in our minds that are not based in reality.  

My mother was a worry wart.  She was always dwelling on something that happened or was caught up in what she thought was going to happen.  And she seemed to get worse with age.  She and my father had a big fight on the morning he died of a heart attack.  He had been sick and she did not want him to go to work.  Being the stubborn person he was, he went anyway and died on the job.  My mother never forgave herself.  During the nine years after my dad died, she worried about what happened and punished herself.

So, of course, some of this worrying behavior rubbed off on me and there have  been  days when I struggled to overcome it.  But the older I have grown, the less I worry.  I have learned to accept what happens and to forgive myself.  But every now and then, worry will raise it's silly head and bite me.  

Are you a worrier?  Does your imagination run wild?  Have you learned to forgive yourself when you make a mistake?  Take heed of Emerson's valuable advice:  Begin each day anew!

Jack Penn

"One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks."

— Jack Penn

South African 

Surgeon, Sculptor, Author

1909 - 1996

To be human and to live with other humans is to face challenges and difficulties.  We experience death, love and heartache, not necessarily in that order.  How we respond to the challenges that life deals us is a measure of the type of person we are.  Do we pick ourselves up and make something of what has happened or do we remain in the mud, wishing to die?  As creative leaders, we have the gift of creativity which can help us turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.  So get out your chisel and chisel away at that stumbling block in your way.