I feel that a real living form is the result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown—where it has experienced something—felt something—it has not understood—and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown—known.
By unknown—I mean the thing that means so much to the person that wants to put it down—clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand—sometimes he partially knows why—sometimes he doesn’t—sometimes it is all working in the dark—but a working that must be done—
Making the unknown—known—in terms of one’s medium is all-absorbing—if you stop to think of the form—as form you are lost—The artist’s form must be inevitable—You mustn’t even think you won’t succeed—Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing.
Making your unknown known is the important thing—and keeping the unknown always beyond you—catching crystallizing your simpler clearer version of life—only to see it turn stale compared to what you vaguely feel ahead—that you must always keep working to grasp—the form must take care of its self if you can keep your vision clear.
Georgia O’Keeffe (painter) writing to Sherwood Anderson (writer).
Source: Brain Pickings.
There was something about this small article, by Maria Popova, that made me want to note these words and keep them to read again and again. I loved the first paragraph most particularly.
I enjoy reading what artists write to each other, seeming to want to think on an important thing that so many wouldn't find important or interesting. Sometimes these things seem like the real stuff of life, as opposed to the forms we fill out and the lives that we Must live in that 'real' world people talk of.
Soon I will be heading off on another adventure, in a small village somewhere between Naples and Rome. There is a house and some dogs that I've been invited to visit, while breathing some good country air, with a view that I suspect I might want to photograph every day.
There is a book that wants to be written, or two. There are the photography workshops to announce, the ones I've planned for 2015. There is a bar where I'm hoping the espresso is perfect and where my beloved crema brioches are possible. Where there's a delightful red wine waiting for me.
Another adventure in Italy, in that land where everything is possible and sometimes, just sometimes, you find giantic lightbulbs out in the carrugi.
