Amazing Book

I forgot to mention on my post about the library about the great find I saw as i was leaving the art section. I ran across a book called "Letters to a Young Artist" Building A Life In Art by Julia Cameron. Can i say this is among my books of influential books? It is amazing!!! I almost finished this easy read of 160 pages. There's a few letters that don't hit me in a particular way but then there's those pages that does and i scream YES!!! Below are excerpts of the goodness ive found. its so inspiring to me as im meeting myself as the artist. This was the book i needed to strengthen and encourage that inner child of mine. i kinda wish i read this when i was younger but im a big believer in things happening at the right time.

• Pg 9-Making art takes guts. Choosing to be vulnerable and exposed rather than safely blocked is a risky venture.
• Pg 15-Making art is as natural as breathing. Just like breathing, you do need to do it, and with coaching you can perhaps learn to do it better.
• Pg 35-Your job is not to be interesting but to be interested. If you are interested enough by what is trying to come through you., you will forget your conventional self and respond in authentic and often surprising ways to the creative force moving through you.
• Creativity is not something you possess but something that expresses through you.
• Pg 58-If art is a spiritual activity and we area ll equally sourced in God, then that tells you both what you need to know and who you need to know:God in the form of creativity itself. Try trusting your unfolding to God and you will be just a little less shattered when someone doesnt like your work. Believe that your gift comes from God and that using it is your gift back to God.
• -pg 83-When we believe "the odds" are stacked against us, we are choosing to believe that "the odds" are more powerful not only than our own gifts but also than God. If the tiny mustard seed can become a tree, if the acorn can become the oak, why cant our ideas flourish into mighty manifestations. It comes down to the question of self-worth, doesn't it?
• pg-97 There is a direct relationship between self-nurturing and our capacity for a sustained creative flow. we dont want to work spasmodically and sporadically/ We want to work consistently and creatively. This means we must treat ourselves as finely tuned mechanisms. We must learn what makes us thrive and give ourselves a diet of those nutrients.
• pg 109 To an eye, an artist never has enough time. and so it is up to us to make time. We need to safegaurd our time against other people and their however well meaning agendas for us. Morning pages..
• Pg 112-what are you doing these days to explore beyond your comfort zone?
• i keep a sign posted in my work area that reads "i am willing to make bad art" (how amazing is that statement ..im going to do this as well...like julia says its shuts down that inner critic)
• Pg 131-Every time you make a piece of art, you locate yourself, your precise position, o n the longitude and latitude of your experience. You learn who you are and what you believe.