“Some people have said to me, ‘Well, don’t you think that kind of success spoils one as an artist? If you’re a punk rocker, you don’t want to have a hit record…’
And I say to them, ‘Fuck you!’
One does their work for the people. And the more people you can touch, the more wonderful it is. You don’t do your work and say, ‘I only want the cool people to read it.’ You want everyone to be transported, or hopefully inspired by it.”
When Patti Smith gives you creative advice, you listen.
Legendary Disney animator Glen Keane demonstrates how to animate a dancer. Lots of useful advice for creativity in general.
You must start pinning, starting listening, start writing, start shooting. Start realizing that to make truly great things it won’t ever be easy. But the privilege we have to help make the world more beautiful, to inspire others toward goodness, to try and put back together the things that have fallen apart is truly a great one - one we must take seriously.– Blaine Hogan
I love making the stuff, that’s sort of the core of it. I love creating the stuff. It’s so satisfying to get from the beginning to the end, from a shaky nothing idea to something that’s well formed and the audience really likes. It’s like a drug: You keep trying to do it again and again and again. I’ve learned from experience that if you work harder at it, and apply more energy and time to it, and more consistency, you get a better result. It comes from the work.
Don’t get depressed about not being where you want to be. This nagging feeling of anxiety is actually called ambition. Ambition is your friend.
Be prolific. Be generative. Be a maker. Find a way to live a creative life (recognize that you don’t need to have a creative career to have a creative life). The more you create the more opportunity you will have to create. Work begets work. Once you do something good, they will be afraid you will do something better — that is a negative power that creates positive opportunities.
The problem with compliancy is that it leads to stagnation. Once happy — satiated — you’re no longer hungry. And no hunger in the game of life means no more striving, no more innovating and no more attitude. Without hunger you have no opinions, no substance, no soul. I realize now why the great minds of history always appear ‘mad’ or ‘angry’ — they were hungry. Hungry for change and improvement.
“Deadlines … make you creative. But opportunity, and telling yourself, ‘Oh, you got all the time in the world, all the money in the world, you got all the colors in the palette you want, anything you want’ - that just kills creativity.”
- Jack White on creativity, inspiration and making it hard for yourself. Via explore-blog.
Routine is not the enemy of creativity. I’m very organized. I go out to get the paper within 20 seconds of the same time each day; my hangovers are scheduled a year in advance. I don’t have time to be nuts. If I was retired, I might be completely out of my mind, because I’d have time to give in to neurotic thinking. Now I just have to work it into a schedule. That neurotic behavior has to produce.
Inspiration is a word used by people who aren’t really doing anything. I go into my office every day that I’m in Brighton and work. Whether I feel like it or not is irrelevant.
(Source: , via explore-blog)
Jonah Lehrer: The Origins of Creative Insight & Why You Need Grit
