divine inspiration and the subconscious...

For quite a while now I have been aware of how the subconscious works in my life. Whenever I am at an opening and people ask me how I create my sculptures I try to explain my creative process and  the concept of the subconscious almost always gets touched upon. Sometimes people understand what I am talking about and others give me a look that makes me wonder if they think I am shining them on or avoiding answers to their questions. In any case, I know it's a reality and it's been fun discovering interviews in which other creative people (spanning across various mediums) explain how the subconscious comes into play in their creative process.

Here are a few things Lenny Kravitz had to say about it:

How do songs come together during the creation of an album?

"I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head." 

I've woken up from dreams and the whole song is there. I'm listening to it in my dreams. I consciously have to wake myself up and get a tape recorder because I hear it like a record. 

The songs just came. I don't really know how they come. This might sound a little odd but after a song is finished, I can think about it a few days later and I don't really realize, 'how did that happen?'. You know, I woke up. I had a song in my head. I went to the tape recorder. I put a piece down. Then I went into the studio and I started cutting it and doing overdubs, next thing it went this direction and I did this, and arranged it put horns and strings and synthesizers and oh percussion and then it grows and grows --- and background vocals…

And all of a sudden it becomes this thing that's really put together and when I'm in the process (because I'm doing most of it myself if not all of it) I'm too busy to think. I'm jumping from one instrument to the next and just trying to keep the flow going. So when it's all done, I just think,"Where did that come from?" I'm kind of in a frenzy when I'm doing it. - Lenny Kravitz

greatness...

Surround yourself with inspiring people.

pep talk...

a dozen quotes to motivate the weary dreamer…

When your mind says give up, hope whispers one more try. - Oprah Winfrey

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." — Aristotle, a Greek philosopher.

You can't run your race watching everyone else run theirs! Keep your eyes on the finish line & just grind! - Tony A. Gaskins Jr.

We should never let anyone else’s perceived inability to evolve slow down our own development. - Russell Simmons

Please hold onto your hope. It is in such limited supply around  the world these days. Hold onto it and be proud that you are one of the ones that does. - Tyler Knott Gregson

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle. - Steve Jobs

Don't feel stupid if you don't like what everyone else pretends to love. - Emma Watson

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant. - Robert Louis Stevenson

If you live in a world where you are the smartest person in the room, where everybody is pulling at you, everybody is drawing from you, everybody is nursing from the milk of your wisdom.. You are in the wrong room. You need to go into another room that makes you think again, that makes you read again, that makes you reignite your passion. You need to be around people who make deposits not just withdraws into your destiny. - Bishop T.D. Jakes

An artist’s life is an unconventional life. It leads away from the example of the past. It struggles painfully against its own conditioning. It appears to rebel but in reality it is an inspired way of life. - Agnes Martin

Change is the essence of life; be willing to surrender who  you are for what you could become.  - unknown

Prayer is the greatest of all forces, because it honors God and brings him into active aid. - E.M. Bounds

random memory

It's a very early  summer morning. The sun is lighting up the whole room.

I'm a kid in elementary school, wiping sleep from my eyes and feeling slightly disoriented by the sounds coming from the other room. In the living room my mom is fully dressed, smiling and rocking her head to the music she has turned up full blast to wake us up with. My brothers and I stumble out of our rooms holding our hands over our ears as my mother greets us with a laugh and says, "Rise and shine - We have the whole day ahead of us. Let's get moving."

The song of the morning - The National Anthem by Jimi Hendrix

I don't remember the details of that day, just that it was good. It started with sunshine, my mom's smile and Jimi.


*** The photo above was taken by the very talented Andrea Jenkins! You can purchase it by going HERE to her shop!

the beauty of different

"I was conscious of being different. Sometimes it bothered me a little bit, mostly because I was so tall and skinny. I was also very awkward but I didn't really mind being different because I perceived that it was connected with creativity." 

- Patti Smith (on her looks)

visions of visionaries

I like hearing what other people think when it comes to creating and being creative...

the subconscious

One reason I have been so productive is that I have let my subconscious work for me. That is to say that's it's not about me sitting there and just grinding it out. It's like - ok, I want to write about, I'm writing a script about HIV infection. I read all of the books, I read the interviews I've done but then I sit back. I just let it sit there for a minute. And I might go out, I might have dinner with you, I might go to a movie but actually that's still going on  - it's something that pops up in my  mind- my subconscious. Then when I wake up either that night or often now in the morning I might wake up at 7:30 even though I don't have to be up until 9 o'clock and I'll write for 90 minutes. I'll just be really fresh and it'll just pop out. That's my subconscious working for me. My mind has been thinking and analyzing it back here somewhere and then it tells me the answer to my question. That's really big and I think actually I learned through yoga as well. If you still your mind and just relax… If it's really important to you, your mind is working on it already. It's really sort of working on it  - you just have to let your mind do that. I think that that's the biggest thing… 

Once the subconscious kicks in you have to execute it, you know what I mean? There's this kind of mystical quality. I write sometimes and an hour, two hours will go by and I'll be like, I don't know how I got here - God touched me - it just came out and I don't know how it did. I look at books I've written, I look at the Motown book I wrote, and I think, "How did I do that?" I don't know how I did that. I can intellectually remember writing on pieces of paper and having charts and having these interviews and tapes but I cannot tell you actually how do I go from this idea,  to this idea, to this idea, why did I use that quote there, how did that whole process happen - I don't know. That happened on a whole other level.
- Nelson George

ass power

Being inspired is not enough. Quincy Jones told me this one time actually. I asked him, "Quincy, so you work with all these great singers - blah, blah, blah, - blah, blah, blah… how come Michael Jackson is so successful? What separated him from other people you work with?" 

He said, "Ass power."

He said Michael had the ability to come in the studio and he would sing the lead vocal and then he would do the background vocals. Then he would stack the harmonies on the background vocals so that the record had like three or four levels to it. That's what he would leave. Most singers, if you could get the lead vocal out of them --- IF you could get the lead vocal out of them,  and they'd stay -- and they didn't want to go to the dope man, or get high, or go to party  - that was something. Michael had that ability to focus on his work and take whatever he had to the highest level that he could take it and that's why he [Quincy Jones] always felt that Michael's records were more creative and very, very detailed. If you listen to Michael's records now it's like a lot of little things, I mean it's really ear candy - your earphones are full. 

Ass power - I always believed in that and that's been a big thing for me, ass power.

People say, "So Nelson, you have written all of these books, how did you do that?" I sit my ass down and I get it done. It's not about me being fly, it's not about me being whatever - you know. Even when I go out - I've met people, I've hung out in all  the clubs... but you know what - there's still like an hour left until two o'clock, I usually leave by two o'clock because I can still get work done until 3 and go to sleep, then get up and have a day. Once you stay past 3 o'clock there's no morning for you. You're through - it's one o'clock, it's breakfast. I knew that even when I was young. That's why I was able to get a lot of stuff done even though I hung out and would go to all these things. I always had a very clear sense of when I needed to go back and get what I needed to get done. Ass power is big.

- Nelson George

a must-see!

Brooklyn Boheme - Official Trailer from Diane Paragas on Vimeo.



Brooklyn Boheme left me inspired and wistful. I wished I could have been a part of this creative group. At the same time, I often find myself thinking - hmmm… I wonder out of the group of artists I know, which ones of us will 'make' it in a way that has a lasting legacy. I hope to be one of them since I already know quite a few people who are definitely leaving a mark on the world.

what I'm doing and what it means...

A few weeks ago a guy was looking at my work and he asked a question that struck me in an odd way. It was innocent enough but it felt like a rock being tossed in the water because its effects reverberated within my mind in a big way. As he looked at the work he asked, " So, are you just going to keep making dresses?" For some reason, in that moment I stood there speechless. Awkward irritation rose up within. They weren't just dresses in my mind. I didn't know if he thought they were boring or redundant, or if he simply asked the question out of curiosity. "Yes" I said calmly. " I still have quite a bit to explore." By my answer and the look on his face I knew he didn't understand what I meant. In fact, I didn't know if I could fully explain what I meant. This conversation has been stirring in my mind ever since that day.

A few days later I got an email about a show celebrating the women's rights and the feminist movement. When I hear the words "feminist" I am always thrown off. I'm stuck by all of the negative images that pop into my head - this in-your-face forceful angry woman image complete with bra-burning and picket signs. The idea of conveying a feminist view in my work makes me feel like I deer in headlights. (For the record, let me say - I know that the movement is about more than the stereotypical view I just mentioned.) Maybe I just struggle with labels…  Or maybe it's because I remember it being used as an insult towards my mom. We had a family friend (a man) who always got into these debates with my mom about 'a woman's place'. I remember being a little kid, hiding behind a book eavesdropping because I knew the debate was getting heated whenever I heard two particular words - feminist and chauvinist. I didn't know what they meant but I knew they struck a cord. And somehow - even though I knew my mom was being called a feminist in an insulting way, I felt proud of her in those moments. So many conflicting thoughts on what it all means. I told you I struggle with labels.

I woke up the other day with an idea in my head that gave me a sense of peace. I realized something profound. You see, only a tiny percentage of women artists are recognized. Many are erased from history or forgotten. I don't want to be forgotten or erased. I want my metal sculptures to last well beyond my years. Yes - they are dresses but they are also women - strong women with all of their personalities and complexities, a reflection of all of their various moods. The fact that I have acknowledged these women is a statement with regard to "feminism". In a sea of paintings, in a city full of artists (many male), in a time when women can be both celebrated and overlooked (depending on the circumstance), I have created these depictions of women - strong, feminine, complex, sweet and bold. And like I told the curious man a few weeks ago - I have so much more to explore.

five senses

SEE

- two men walking on stilts downtown

- a girl on a bright pink bike with her face painted white and wearing a big viking hat along with two friends who just looked normal in their jeans and t-shirts as they rode their bikes

- a police chase unfolding that involved 7 police cars and a fire truck. It also involved the police driving down the wrong side of the street going around cars going the opposite direction and a guy scaling an 8 foot fence, jumping at least 1 story and running away.

HEAR

- a guy walking down a busy street yelling at someone on his cell phone

- a woman on the train with twins around five years old (they were wearing leggings and mid-drift baring shirts) tell a woman that her daughters' names were Diamond and Desiree. All I can think is "She's going  to have to work hard to keep them off  the pole!"

TASTE

- silvered almonds on a green salad

- hot coffee

- berry smoothies

- BBQ ribs

TOUCH/FEEL

- more stomach issues

- full of ideas and inspiration

- exhausted and exasperated by a difficult commute to the studio

SMELL

- my mom's perfume

- popcorn popping (they serve free popcorn at the hardware store)

- the sunscreen I just started using on my face

whispers of inspiration

Some of the best ideas come to me first thing in the morning when I open my eyes. Today for example, I woke up, grabbed a notebook and pen next to the bed and wrote down a thought that had been brewing in my mind during the night. I'm applying for a juried show and with each piece submitted they require that you communicate in 500 characters or less how the work fits the theme of the show. For some artists this requirement keeps them from being included because they either can't explain their work within a context or won't. I read the show guidelines and  fell asleep last night reflecting upon the piece I'd chosen to submit. This morning the words were there - it was like someone was whispering in my ear, dictating with eloquence just what I should say. I love when this happens.

The answers come when I allow my mind to rest - like when I'm sleeping, in the shower or loading the laundry into the washer. I need to buy some bathtub crayons. I think bathtub crayons are the best things ever! Sounds nutty or childlike but so many ideas come when I'm in the shower. I have bought them several times, using them to write on the shower walls and capture all of the thoughts that might get lost after the water is turned off. In moments where inspiration comes like someone whispering in my ear, I know that I am merely an instrument and that this is all bigger than me.