“But no matter how much the mess and distortion make you want to despair, you can’t abandon the work because you’re chained to the bloody thing. It’s absolutely woven into your soul and you know you can never rest until you’ve brought truth out of all the distortion and beauty out of all the mess. But it’s agony, agony, agony – while simultaneously being the most wonderful and rewarding experience in the world. And that’s the creative process which so few understand.
It involves an indestructible sort of fidelity, an insane sort of hope, and indescribable sort of…well, it’s love, isn’t it? There’s no other word for it…And don’t throw Mozart at me…I know he claimed his creative process was no more than a form of automatic writing. But the truth was he sweated and slaved and died young giving birth to all that music. He poured himself out and suffered.
That’s the way it is. That’s creation…You can’t create without waste and mess and sheer undiluted slog. You can’t create without pain. It’s all part of the process. It’s in the nature of things.
So in the end every major disaster, every tiny error, every wrong turning, every fragment of discarded clay, all the blood, sweat and tears – everything has meaning. I give it meaning. I reuse, reshape, recast all that goes wrong so that, in the end, nothing is wasted, and nothing is without significance and nothing ceases to be precious to me.”
– Harriet March via Susan Howatch via Rob Bell’s book “Drops Like Stars” (lol – I know…)
Damn…
That did something to me yesterday when I first heard it on Rob Bell’s latest Robcast episode. So much so that I wrestled with that quote for the better part of yesterday. Doing so, led me to pull out Rob’s actual book – “Drops Like Stars” that, I thought I had already read, then realized that I hadn’t, so read it all in one sitting last night.
Double damn…
I’ve never read a book in one sitting, no matter how big or small. Then again, I’ve never thought about the art that we create in such a compelling way.
Sure, I know that I’ve always loved taking on the act of creating something out of nothing and usually using past experiences as fuel or content, but I had never given it that much thought. Harriet via Susan via Rob nailed that shit! That was freakin’ beautiful so I’m gonna store this one away for safe keeping…
Rob finishes the above portion in his book with:
“At the end of her speech, I have a question: is she talking about sculpture or life? My hope is that by the end of this book, your answer to that question will be yes.”
This was Podcast/Robcast # 206 in case you’re into it, btw. I don’t think I could recommend an artist’s work more…This Rob Bell is something special and I’ve been a fan of his work since I first came across it, about 13 years ago.
Sooooo….Enjoy!
Oh!!!! And also? So. Much YES! (See the above reference)
