Art From Your Heart

“Being an artist means to be continually asking, “How can it be better? Whatever it is. It may be your art and it may be your life.

Most who choose the artist’s path don’t have a choice. We feel compelled to engage, as if by some primal instinct, the same force that calls turtles toward the sea after hatching in the sand. We follow this instinct. To deny it is dispiriting, as if we are in violation of nature. If we zoom out, we see this blind impulse is always there, guiding our aim beyond ourselves. In the moment when we feel the work is taking shape, there’s a dynamic surge, followed by an urge to share, in the hopes of replicating that mysterious emotional charge in others. This is the call to self-express, our creative purpose. It’s not necessarily to understand ourselves or be understood. We share our filter, our way of seeing, in order to spark an echo in others. Art is a reverberation of an impermanent life.” Rick Rubin, The Creative Act

For two days, the river keeps you down
Then you rise to the light without a sound
Past the playgrounds and empty switching yards
The turtles eat the skin from your eyes
So they lay open to the stars

Your clothes give way to the current and river stone
‘Til every trace of who you ever were is gone
And the things of the earth, they make their claim
That the things of heaven may do the same

Bye my darling, for your love, I give God thanks
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros banks -song “Matamoras Banks” by Bruce Springsteen

A bell is no bell till you ring it,
A song is no song till you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn’t put there to stay—
Love isn’t love
Till you give it away. -song “Sixteen Going On Seventeen (Reprise)” from “The Sound Of Music”, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Make art from your heart.

Detach from outcome or from reach. It’s irrelevant.

The win lies in exploring your heart, having the courage to make your art, and then committing to do so with excellence and generosity for others.

Is there any other reason to do it?

P.S. – Speaking of turtles, this article.

P.P.S. – This article on Valentine’s Day.