We have moved the gallery and I am on to my next adventure:
Today, I am firing my gas kiln from my home. I have a to-do list started for my day. I plan to pause and create a journal entry using several items - tissue paper, glue, watercolor paint, maybe tea. I read Robert Genn's newsletter this morning and I would like to pass it on:
A remarkable old black and white photograph of Henry Miller, taken when he was living in Big Sur, California, shows a small room, almost a shack, fairly tidy, with books and a few of the simple staples of the writer's life--paper, pen and ink. But something else in that room has always made me curious. I wonder if you can find it?
It's curious because I've had the same thing hanging up in all my own studios since my teens. I bought it in a junk store. It made me smile. It appealed to my feelings of power and my secret desire to control things. It's still here. Just now I dusted it off. It's a nightstick--a truncheon--I call it my billy club. I've never actually hit anyone with it.
I always suspected Miller had it as a weapon to fend off the demons that often beset creative folks. I'm happy with that idea.
Miller gave his fellow writers a set of commandments--eleven of them. Here they are, only slightly abridged:
1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books.
3. Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood.
5. When you can't create, you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don't be a draught horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it--go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.
For painters, I've always liked Miller's commandments except the first two and the last. In the first two, I'm a believer in multitasking--maybe multitasking is easier and more valuable in painting. But in the last, I think he would have approved, in our case, of putting painting above writing. Passionate people always put their main passion first, and he knew that. Goodness, he knew that. Even if we have to sometimes hit ourselves on the head with a billy club.
I would add that this applies to potters, too. Have a good day. The kiln is at 1715.
Have a productive day, in however you spend it.
C2.
A fundraiser for our Grand Haven Lighthouse.
Friday, November 2, 6-9pm.
I am hosting an event with 10% off of all sales being donated to our fund. Throughout October and November, I will donate $1 for each new like on Facebook. Please help me build the fund to maintain our local icon.
(Go to:www.facebook.com/C2CGallery)
More event details to come! It will be a fun evening at C2C.
Robert Genn:
It's curious because I've had the same thing hanging up in all my own studios since my teens. I bought it in a junk store. It made me smile. It appealed to my feelings of power and my secret desire to control things. It's still here. Just now I dusted it off. It's a nightstick--a truncheon--I call it my billy club. I've never actually hit anyone with it.
I always suspected Miller had it as a weapon to fend off the demons that often beset creative folks. I'm happy with that idea.
Miller gave his fellow writers a set of commandments--eleven of them. Here they are, only slightly abridged:
1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books.
3. Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood.
5. When you can't create, you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don't be a draught horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it--go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.
For painters, I've always liked Miller's commandments except the first two and the last. In the first two, I'm a believer in multitasking--maybe multitasking is easier and more valuable in painting. But in the last, I think he would have approved, in our case, of putting painting above writing. Passionate people always put their main passion first, and he knew that. Goodness, he knew that. Even if we have to sometimes hit ourselves on the head with a billy club.
I would add that this applies to potters, too. Have a good day. The kiln is at 1715.
Have a productive day, in however you spend it.
C2.
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