We continue our book study with ‘Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit’ by Corita Kent and Jan Steward. Last week we looked at Sources and talked about how everything is a source. There is great freedom in that. When we look at everything as a source, sometimes it’s hard to choose which direction to take, which idea to follow. This week we look at Structure. Structure helps us to focus. Structure is something that can drive the work, shape the project, AND structure is something that can drive us and shape our process.
In this episode we explore the idea of sources. How do you gather and use sources in your creative work? What or who inspires you? We continue to explore the ideas in our book study to expand what’s possible in our projects.
“Working from a source is not the same thing as copying. The work is yours only–drawn from your experience and coloured by your perceptions. The source frees us to depart from something rather than from nothing or everything. We do not seek to duplicate the source, but to use it as a reference. It relieves us of thinking we have to make something new or great (a scary idea). We will make something new when we work at the source with our mind and leave our hands and pen (stick, chopstick, pencil, etc…) free to get on with the job of drawing (painting, building, etc…).”
p. 47, Learning By Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit by Corita Kent and Jan Steward
In this episode we talk about Chapter 2, ‘Looking,’ in ‘Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit” by Corita Kent and Jan Steward.
Nurturing and developing ways of seeing is one of the most important practices any artist or writer can engage in.
Each week we integrate the ideas into our practice and talk about how it goes, one chapter at a time. We hope you’ll join our Facebook Community “Hummingbird Podcast Community” where we can continue the discussion and share the learnings with each other.
‘Open curiosity’–what does this mean to you? What is your relationship with curiosity today? Where do you hope it will be in a couple months?
Some of our favourite quotes:
“When you get past making labels for things, it is possible to combine and transform elements into new things. Look at things until their import, identity, name, use, and description have dissolved.”
“Look at a tree and its shape. Look at the part the leaves play in making the shape you see and look at the part the trunk and branches play in making the structure you see.”
“Try looking the way a child looks – as if always for the first time – and you will, I promise, feel wider awake than since you yourself wound your own way home from that back of the house to the front.”
Let’s start with the word ‘Beginning’–what does this mean? What were your first thoughts when you read this section?
In this episode we begin a deep dive into ‘Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit” by Corita Kent and Jan Steward.
Each week we integrate the ideas into our practice and talk about how it goes, one chapter at a time. We hope you’ll join our Facebook Community “Hummingbird Podcast Community” where we can continue the discussion and share the learnings with each other.
‘Teachings to free the creative spirit’–what does this mean to you? What is your relationship with your creative spirit today? Where do you hope it will be in a couple months?
Some of our favourite quotes from the first section:
“She didn’t teach us how to draw or paint so much as she taught us to care.”
“Living the questions was our job; we were never being artists.”
“Doing and making are acts of hope, and as that hope grows, we stop feeling overwhelmed by the troubles of the world.”
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