Self-portrait at an architect’s estate in Sri Lanka
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Sister Corita
Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules
Rule 1: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for a while.
Rule 2: General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher. Pull everything out of your fellow students.
Rule 3: General duties of a teacher: Pull everything out of your students.
Rule 4: Consider everything an experiment.
Rule 5: Be self-disciplined. This means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
Rule 6: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.
Rule 7: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
Rule 8: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
Rule 9: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
Rule 10: “We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” John Cage
Helpful Hints: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything – it might come in handy later.
There should be new rules next week.
Quoted in The Art Life: On Creativity and Career by Stuart Horodner
Comments are welcome!
Filed under: An Artist's Life, Art in general, Creative Process, Inspiration, Pearls from Artists, Photography, Quotes, Sri Lanka, Travel, Working methods Tagged: "The Art Life: On Creativity and Career", analyze, architect, art, better, breaking, catch, choosing, consider, create, department, different, disciplined, duties, enjoy, estate, eventually, everything, experiment, fail, fellow, finding, follow, general, happy, Immaculate Heart College, John Cage, leaving, lighter, make, manage, mistake, next, nothing, people, place, plenty, processes, pull, quantities, room, rules, self portrait, self-disciplined, Sister Corita, smart, someone, Sri Lanka, Stuart Horodner, student, teacher, things, think, time, trust, week, whenever, win, wise, work, yourself
