During my recent passage in Paris, I photographed this quote on the Embarcadero, right across from the Eiffel tower…

‘Tout homme crée sans le savoir
Comme il respire
Mais l’artiste se sent créer
Son acte engage tout son être
Sa peine bien-aimée le fortifie‘ 

Loosely translates to:

‘Any man creates without realizing it
Just as he breathes
But the artist feels himself creating
His act engages his whole being
His beloved sorrow fortifies him‘ 

My own distilled and slightly less poetic take: striving to become conscious of our innate creative power is espousing the Way of the Artist, and it is a high ideal, for it allows us to consciously and positively influence reality. Also, allowing ourselves to experience the pain and sorrow as well as the joy and laughter is part of artful / heartful living.

Virtual friend Bethany Buffington, who wears philosophy on her brow and has poetry in her heart, judiciously commented on part I of this post (as it appears on Myspace), suggesting that the proper way to create a house is as an outer expression of one’s inner beauty. One who cultivates inner beauty and chooses to let it shine by expressing it in the material realm in whatever form (house, object, performance, etc.) is certainly an artist. And I wholeheartedly agree that a proper dwelling should be a work of art. And this invites a proper digression into the concept of beauty
(more…)

-Ralph Waldo Emerson