Creative Musings

Before the Renaissance, paintings and drawings showed scenes that were flat and wonky, with angles that careened all over the place. It also gave the impression of chaos. Where are we supposed to focus in this image? The dudes in the red robes, the stuff on the shelves, the weird armadillo monster in the bottom right, or the miniature guy (a kid?) with the lamb? Everyone here is busy doing something, and none of it makes any sense. An image from a pre-Renaissance illuminated manuscript Then...

"What is to give light must endure burning." —Viktor Frankl That quote recently appeared in my meditation app. It's been pinging around my brain ever since. The concept of burning makes me think of struggle, sacrifice, death, pain, injury, being used up. But burning also generates light. Without light, we can't see. Without light, we don't evolve eyes to see (as I talked about in last week's newsletter). Does light exist without darkness? How else can we discern what IS light, without its...

All fish have eyes, right? Not those who live permanently in pitch-black caves. Their eyes disappeared through evolution because they have no need for them. They experience their environment in different ways. The light itself creates a need for organs of seeing. When a person who has been blind from birth is restored to sight, they can't see right away—they need extensive rehabilitation and training. Without having the neural connections in place, the brain doesn't know how to process the...

Iris Murdoch, in her 1970 book "The Sovereignty of Good," coined the term "unselfing" to describe that state of transcendence that comes from immersing ourselves in nature--or what she termed "good art." Although I don't like the term "good" because it implies its judgmental opposite, "bad art" (which is always in the eye of the beholder), I can understand what she means. Maybe a better term is "connected" art. Art that is made while its creator is connected to something greater than...

For my entire career, I've straddled two warring worlds: Fine Art and Illustration. One familiar with my childhood might notice a running theme, as I was often the mediator between parental disagreements. I work in two fields that seem like they should be on the same page, but they operate as if there's only room for one of them to be right. I first noticed the chasm in college. While my parents' divorce finally came through, I was navigating the landscape of what it meant to be an artist in...

In the late '90s, I was working on portrait and mural concepts for the Hotel Miracosta in Tokyo DisneySea. My design parameter was to create a series of portraits featuring Disney characters in famous artworks. I sketched out hilarious parodies on works from da Vinci to Warhol. Months later, I finally presented them to the team so they could choose the ones that would fit the space. The meeting included the resident "character police" at Imagineering—the person in charge of ensuring character...

There’s a reason why authoritarian regimes work so hard to suppress artistic voices: when artists in a free society are able to express what they perceive, they often challenge power. Especially if that power has run amok. William Gropper was one such artist. I ran across his work in the latest magazine from the De Young and Legion of Honor museums in San Francisco. Amidst all the pleasant images of Monets and Etruscan statues in their current exhibitions, I stopped cold at this image....

25 years ago, I was in Japan for a month, painting murals in Tokyo DisneySea. I worked six days a week on a construction site, with more noise and toxic smells than I’d ever experienced in America. On Sundays, my one day off, I explored Tokyo and the surrounding areas. On my last free day, my friend Marady and I took the train to Kamakura, a town known for its Great Buddha statue. We wanted to take the long way through the mountains, so we memorized the Japanese characters for Great Buddha so...

The biggest block to my creativity has always been procrastination. It’s why I have endless projects that keep getting put off. It’s why my Reminders app has 20 notifications on it, all past due. It’s why I haven’t written this Sunday newsletter until the evening. Nothing I do seems to make it go away. Every trick, hack, or technique only makes the habit stronger. I’ve read productivity books by Steven Pressfield, Charles Duhigg, James Clear, B.J. Fogg, Stephen R. Covey, Cal Newport, and...