great advice

warning: materials in process
Originally uploaded by bluepupae.

Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder, wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, gasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning...searching, perching, besmirching, grinding grinding grinding away at yourself. stop it and just DO...trust and tickle somthing inside you, your "weird humor." you belong in the most secret part of you. don't worry about cool, make your own uncool...if you fear, make it work for you--draw and paint your fear and anxiety. and stop worrying about big, deep things such as "to decide on a purpose and way of life..." you must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. then you will be able to DO! i have much confidence in you and even though you are tormenting yourself, the work you do is very good. try and do some BAD work/ the worst you can think of and see what happens but mainly relax and let everything go to hell.

Sol LeWitt's advice to Eva Hesse in a letter. April 14, 1965

I saw an exhibit of LeWitt's work at the Austin Museum of Art. I find the mathematical and logical but arbitrary rules in his work interesting. though his work is not exactly moving, this letter is.

Bruce Mau Design : An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Here are a few items from Bruce Mau Design's Incomplete Manifesto for growth. You can find the complete list here. This applies to any creative endeavor.

1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

they're all pretty good, but i really like #2. it's difficult to hold back the judging mind--to refrain from applying value judgments to what is in front of you, but i do agree that in art and in life, being patient can lead to new insight.