58 Quotes From Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way That Will Help You Understand Your Inner Artist
It is audacity, and not talent, that moves an artist to center stage.
1
No matter what your age or life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.
2
Just as blood is a fact of your physical body and nothing you invented, creativity is a fact of your spiritual body and nothing you must invent.
3
When we move out on faith into the act of creation, the universe is able to advance.
4
We meditate to discover our own identity, our right place in the scheme of the universe.
Through meditation, we acquire and eventually acknowledge our connection to an inner power source that has the ability to transform our outer world. In other words, meditation gives us only the light of insight but also the power of expansive change.
Insight in and of itself is an intellectual comfort. Power in and of itself is a blind force that can destroy as easily as build. It is only when we consciously learn to link power and light that we begin to feel our rightful identities as creative beings.
5
In order to have a real relationship with our creativity, we must take the time and care to cultivate it. Our creativity will use this time to confront us, to confide in us, to bond with us, and to plan.
6
Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery. A mystery draws us in, leads us on, lures us. A duty may numb us out, turn us off, tune us out.
7
There is just this dream, this feeling, this urge, this desire. There is seldom any real proof, but the dream lives on.
8
Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse.
9
It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time.
10
Negative beliefs are exactly that: beliefs, not facts.
11
Don’t let your self-doubt turn into self-sabotage.
12
Creativity flourishes when we have a sense of safety and self-acceptance.
13
The essential element in nurturing our creativity lies in nurturing ourselves.
14
Be gentle but firm, and hang tough. … Your own healing is the greatest message of hope for others.
15
Anger is our friend. Not a nice friend. Not a gentle friend. Buy a very, very loyal friend. It will always tell us when we have been betrayed. It will always tell us when we have betrayed ourselves. It will always tell us that it is time to act in our own best interests.
16
We call it coincidence. We call it luck. We call it anything but what it is — the hand of God, or good, activated by our own hand when we act in behalf of our truest dreams, when we commit to our own soul.
17
Remember that even if you have a truly rotten piece of art, it may be a necessary stepping stone to your next work. Art matures spasmodically and requires ugly-duckling growth stages.
18
Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.
19
As a creative being, you will be more productive when coaxed than when bullied.
20
One reason we are miserly with ourselves is scarcity thinking.
21
We must learn to let the flow manifest itself where it will — not where we will it.
22
It is as though we want to believe God can create subatomic structure but is clueless when faced with how to aid or fix our painting, sculpture, writing, film.
23
Creativity is a spiritual issue. Any progress is made by leaps of faith, some small and some large.
24
An artist must have downtime, time to do nothing.
Defending our right to such time takes courage, conviction, and resiliency. Such time, space, and quiet will strike our family and friends as a withdrawal from them. It is.
For an artist, withdrawal is necessary. Without it, the artist in us feels vexed, angry, out of sorts. If such deprivation continues, our artist becomes sullen, depressed, hostile. We eventually become like cornered animals, snarling at our family and friends to leave us alone and stop making unreasonable demands.
We are the ones making unreasonable demands. We expect our artist to be able to function without giving it what it needs to do so. An artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude. An artist requires the healing of time alone. Without this period of recharging, our artist becomes depleted.
25
We strive to be good, to be nice, to be helpful, to be unselfish. We want to be generous, of service, of the world. But what we really want is to be left alone. When we can’t get others to leave us alone, we eventually abandon ourselves. To others, we may look like we’re there. We may act like we’re there. But our true self has gone to ground.
26
Listening to the siren song of more, we are deaf to the still small voice waiting in our soul to whisper, “You’re enough.”
27
We are operating out of the toxic old idea that God’s will for us and our will for us are at opposite ends of the table. Thinking like this is grounded in the idea that God is a stern parent with rigid ideas about what’s appropriate for us.
28
Creativity lives in paradox: serious art is born from serious play.
29
Learn to accept the possibility that the universe is helping you with what you are doing.
30
Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It is a loop — an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing and to lose sight of the whole.
31
Artists attempting to exist, grow, even flourish, within that environment must recognize that the entire thrust of intellectualism runs counter to the creative impulse.
32
We like to focus on having learned a skill or on having made an artwork. This attention to final form ignores the fact that creativity lies not in the done but in the doing.
33
Focused on process, our creative life retains a sense of adventure. Focused on product, the same creative life can feel foolish or barren.
34
We inherit the obsession with product and the idea that art produces finished product from our consumer-oriented society.
35
Focus on the next right thing.
36
Big changes happen with small steps.
37
Work begets work. Small actions lead us to the larger movements in our creative lives. Take one small daily action instead of indulging in the big questions.
38
The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist. The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all.
39
Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process, a loving recognition of all creativity around is.
40
A successful creative career is always built on successful creative failures. The trick is to survive them.
41
When we are clear about who we are and what we are doing, the energy flows freely and we experience no strain.
42
The point of work is the work.
43
Focusing on fame creates a continual feeling of lack.
44
The only cure for the fame drug is creative endeavor. Only when we are being joyfully creative can we release the obsession with others and how they are doing (or what they think about us).
45
The desire to be better than can choke off the simple desire to be.
46
An act of art needs time to mature.
47
The need to win — now! — is a need to win approval from others. As an antidote, we must learn to approve of ourselves. Showing up for the work is the win that matters.
48
I am an artist. As an artist, I may need a different mix of stability and flow from other people. I may find that a 9 to 5 job steadies me and leaves me free to create. Or I may find that a 9 to 5 drains me of energy and leaves me unable to create. I must experiment with what works for me.
49
To be an artist is to recognize the particular. To appreciate the peculiar.
50
Creativity is oxygen for our souls. Cutting off our creativity makes us savage. We react like we are being choked.
51
To kill your dreams because they are irresponsible is to be irresponsible to yourself.
52
The creator made us creative. Our creativity is our gift from God. Our use of it is gift to God. Accepting this bargain is the beginning of true self-acceptance.
53
Creativity is a spiritual practice. It is not something that can be perfected, finished and set aside.
54
Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control. Why is this so difficult to do? So that we can maintain an illusion of control.
55
It is the inner commitment to be true to ourselves and follow our dreams that trigger the support of the universe.
56
We speak often about ideas as brainchildren. What we do not realize is that brainchildren, like all babies, should not be dragged from the creative womb prematurely. We must learn to wait for an idea to hatch.
57
The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.
58
It is audacity, and not talent, that moves an artist to center stage.
