what art is
24th July 2016 | for Creatives | creative process, art, Robert Olen Butler, writing |
"If you want to think your way into your fiction, if you think you can analyze your way into a work of art, we're going to be totally at odds philosophically about what art is and where it comes from."
Similar for Creatives
The medium is unforgiving
"The artistic medium of fiction writers—language—is not innately sensual. The medium is unforgiving whenever we look for it in our minds. Some visual artists do a lot of conceptualizing and still end up creating terrific works of art. They are able to do so because once they get out there in front of their canvases or their blocks of granite, they have to leave those ideas behind. The medium itself won't let them think."
Back the Hell Off
"You have to tell your mind to back the hell off. It's another place in yourself entirely where you must look to create a work of art."
You Cannot Flinch
"When you write, you cannot flinch. You have to go down into that deepest, darkest, most roiling, white-hot place ... whatever scared the hell out of you down there—and there's plenty—you have to go in there; down into the deepest part of it, and you can't flinch, can't walk away. That's the only way to create a work of art—even though you have plenty of defense mechanisms to keep you out of there, and those defense mechanisms are going to work against you mightily."
craft is always secondary
"The so-called Stanislavsky Method rests on two principles: that the actor's body is an instrument that must be supple, strong, and prepared; and that craft is always secondary to the truth of emotional connection."