Terius Nash, a.k.a The-Dream on Songwriting

I read this article a while ago, and kept meaning to do a post. I always feel like I never have enough time to do everything I want to do, and I keep wanting to make it a priority to do things that make me happy and make me wonder. Here are two quotes about songwriting (and really, the importance of doing things that reaffirm your humanity, that keep you connected to yourself, and to something outside of you that's well, mysterious):

"It's hard to explain. It's definitely more spiritual — why I would be doing music in the first place, if I didn't get goose bumps and stuff? We're so excited, all of us — we're like kids...that just found out that you can mix the packs of Kool-Aid – mix the powder with the sugar, and just eat it straight. We used to do it as kids — I have no idea why we used to do that. But that feeling of childlike – childhood — finding something for the first time."
 - The-Dream

"it feels like the sun is rising, without me having to say that in the lyric.
With music and with harmony it's just one of those things, man. Yeah, I can't even explain it. It just makes me feel alive, I guess."
-The-Dream

For the full article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/06/19/193538349/the-dream-on-why-we-all-need-r-b

To goose bumps (the good kind), to wonder and to doing things that make us feel alive.

Ballet, Art & Death

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/19/174753335/a-ballet-memorial-to-a-son-killed-at-war

"You're taking something which is horrible ... and turning it into something which is beautiful and life-affirming," Amy Wolfe tells NPR's Lynn Neary. "That's the way art is."

I think that's a damn good definition of art, don't you?

And I just think it's so incredible that we can take our grief and our pain and all the things we wished hadn't happened and turn them into something. Make them into something more. It's like that story Rumpelstiltskin, and how he spins straw into gold.

We can spin our sorrow into art.

To creating something beautiful out of whatever we have on hand.

Drafts

 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/movies/awardsseason/writers-rethink-words-for-the-big-screen.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&nl=movies&emc=edit_fm_20130104

"David O. Russell wrote 20 drafts of the screenplay for “Silver Linings Playbook,” based on a novel by Matthew Quick. Ol Parker did 43, for four directors, before “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” was done. Tony Kushner’s first pass at “Lincoln,” based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” and other sources, was 500 pages long."

Can you imagine writing 20 drafts of something? Or 43?

I haven't, so far. I think sometimes we lose sight of how difficult creative work can be, even if you love it and it's the only thing you can see yourself doing. We see the finished product - a novel, a movie, a piece of art - and we marvel at it and we think to ourselves, "I couldn't do that in a million years."

What if we try?

To drafts.

Tim Walker, Dreams, and Magic

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evelyne-politanoff/tim-walker-story-teller-photos_b_1970997.html?utm_hp_ref=style&ir=Style

With an imagination that knows no bounds, Tim Walker turns fashion shoots into fairytales or, in his own words, "daydreams into photographs."
-Evelyn Politanoff

I haven't read this book or seen this exhibition, nor am I really familiar with Tim Walker's work, but I love that phrase, turning "daydreams into photographs." It's magical, isn't it? Not to sound like a five-year-old (or maybe to bring out the five-year-old in you, too, so we can once again recognize magic), but well, isn't it magical? Turning a little bit of nothing into something...fluff into something more concrete. Dreams into reality, a little bit, anyway.

"Sometimes when you're taking a picture an extraordinary sense of luck and chance takes over and propels you to make pictures that you could't in your wildest dreams have imagined. This is the magic of photography."
-Tim Walker

I'm not much of a photographer, but I think I know what he's talking about when he discusses making something "that you could[n]'t in your wildest dreams have imagined," don't you?

To turning dreams into reality and creating what we can't (even in our wildest dreams) imagine. To magic.

Dancing and Shadows

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-dancer-who-made-lifes-transcience-lasting/2012/10/14/b797929e-1626-11e2-9855-71f2b202721b_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

First of all, sorry it's been such a long time. I was consistent for a while...and then inconsistent for a while (maybe a cycle of its own?). I'll try to update a couple times a week again (to the possible one person out there who's reading this).

I haven't actually seen Eric Hampton's work at all, but a few sentences caught my attention in the article:

"The dances he created...had everything you need in dark times, or in life in general: humor, poetry, human warmth. Moments that trapped a fleeting sensation and kept it aglow in your mind like a candle flame."

Don't you just love that? There is so much truth in those sentences, especially the part about how humor, poetry, and human warmth are so essential.

"It was always Hampton’s strength to find gold in the shadows."

I would like to be able to do that. We don't control so much of what happens in the world, but we can always control how we react...yes, maybe it does feel like the sky is falling. But isn't it the loveliest shade of blue? (Okay, maybe that just sounds completely absurd...but you know what? Maybe life is absurd. Things don't always make sense.)

"Yet Hampton’s courage (or was it unquenchable artistic fire?) still astounds those of us who witnessed it, and borders on the superhuman. As amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (the dread Lou Gehrig’s disease) gradually shut down his outer functioning, he still managed to bring forth a creative, nurturing inner life. "

That's just beyond words, isn't it? Impressive doesn't even come close.

To "humor, poetry and human warmth" - wherever you may find them: dance, art, sports, anything. Everything.

Francesca Lia Block: On Stories

“Stories are like genies...They can carry us into and though our sorrows. Sometimes they burn, sometimes they dance, sometimes they weep, sometimes they sing. Like genies, everyone has one. Like genies, sometimes we forget that we do.
Our stories can set us free...When we set them free.”
- Francesca Lia Block

I completely believe this quote. I don't think this only applies to stories, though. I think this really can apply to any type of art, anything you can pour yourself into: painting, singing, dancing, drawing, etc. You always have that power to make music, make art, write a story, to create from whatever is in your head, no matter what's going on.

And setting it down, pouring it out...it can free you sometimes. Lighten your load.

To telling your story (even if you're the only one who ever reads it).

Creativity (on Disney lacking imagination, the paradox of creativity, and art)

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creative-thinkering/201112/twelve-things-you-were-not-taught-in-school-about-creative-thinking

"Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them."
-Michael Michalko

I have mixed feelings about that very first sentence in the quote. I love it but it also frustrates me beyond belief...it's like asking someone a question (i.e., What should I do with my life?) and having them give the best and worst, most helpful and most useless answer ever: What do you want/think?

(I have to admit, I myself am guilty of giving that answer!) 

I think it's necessary, though, this paradox. You have to let go of everything you think you know, and then sometimes, some knowledge - maybe something you had within you this whole time, maybe something outside finally makes an impact - enters and you create something new.

"Albert Einstein was expelled from school because his attitude had a negative effect on serious students; he failed his university entrance exam and had to attend a trade school for one year before finally being admitted; and was the only one in his graduating class who did not get a teaching position because no professor would recommend him. One professor said Einstein was "the laziest dog" the university ever had. Beethoven's parents were told he was too stupid to be a music composer. Charles Darwin's colleagues called him a fool and what he was doing "fool's experiments" when he worked on his theory of biological evolution. Walt Disney was fired from his first job on a newspaper because "he lacked imagination." Thomas Edison had only two years of formal schooling, was totally deaf in one ear and was hard of hearing in the other, was fired from his first job as a newsboy and later fired from his job as a telegrapher; and still he became the most famous inventor in the history of the U.S."
- Michael Michalko

Who else finds this paragraph inspiring? Walt Disney lacking imagination? Einstein being expelled? Charles Darwin, the fool? Quick, someone tell me I lack imagination and call me a fool!

"If you want to become an artist and all you did was paint a picture every day, you will become an artist. You may not become another Vincent Van Gogh, but you will become more of an artist than someone who has never tried."
- Michael Michalko

So true, right? So whatever it is that you want to do, do it a little bit every day. You never know what could happen. Not all artists are Van Goghs, not all writers are Shakespeare...so the hell what? They're still artists and writers, aren't they?

You have to be willing to be bad, and actually produce "bad" work, in order to get better. 

To lacking imaginations, being fools, and being "bad."