Get to Work

        I’ll be at Roslindale Open Studios this weekend, so I’ve been making up new calendars and note cards, matting and framing original prints, and preparing blocks to carve.  I had a meeting to go to last night and I have another tonight.  So am I in the mood to spend my time today writing a deep and substantive blog post?  No, I am not.  What better time, therefore, to share some of the things creative people through the ages have said about getting the inspiration to create something.

Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work.

                Chuck Close, artist  (I’ve also seen something similar attributed to Stephen King.)

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.

                Isabelle Allende, writer

A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.

Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.

                Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer

Don’t wait for moods.  You accomplish nothing if you do that.  Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

                Pearl S. Buck, writer

To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.

                Pablo Picasso, artist

The desire to write grows with writing.

                Desiderius Erasmus, writer

You fail only if you stop writing [or, more broadly, creating].

                Ray Bradbury, writer

[Picture: Painter and His Canvas, linoleum cut by Pablo Picasso, 1963 (Image from The Metropolitan Museum of Art).]