Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Security

Most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth. In this way they have a certain security...
We, however, are not prisoners.
Rainer Maria Rilke

8 comments:

kate said...

There is security in the familiar. And it's nice to have that. The important thing is to find a balance between embracing the familiar for stability and exploring the unknown for growth.

IstvanBloggin' said...

I totally agree with you, the quote is in a way extreme, but i find it motivational. There is another one i like about security by Thomas Aquinas:
"A ship in harbor is safe... but that is not what ships are for."

ArtPropelled said...

The ship in harbor quote is one of my favourites. (Of course I have almost 4 volumes of favourites!)It's so important to push ones self a little further out of the comfort zones each time we creates something. I tend to take very tiny steps in the fear that if the piece flops my spirits flop with it.

IstvanBloggin' said...

For me it's quite hard to hold that spirit of exploration and experiment while I create, I get tired pretty easily. So often i need an extra motivation, which i find mostly in work of other artists. But i must say that comments and discussions on this blog became my favorite source of motivation and inspiration. Thank you all for contributing with your lovely comments!
Robyn,I would love to see your 4 volumes. If you like you can send me an e-mail with some of your favorites, I'll post them here and we can discuss them all together.

Cécile said...

The quote is interesting but I wonder whether I agree with it or not. I am not certain creativity is held prisoner by security. Many artists are introverted personalities, shy, who are easily overwhelmed by the world around them. For many of them, isn't creation also protection? One's own world made stone or music or painting, like walls, like citadels?

I think some people can be creative locked inside very small rooms. Jane Austen, for instance, said she felt as if she was painting on tiny canevasses with tiny brushes.

IstvanBloggin' said...

I agree with everything you've said, I like the idea that art can be a wall, a citadel.
But i guess i was more thinking about security and comfort in creation, and about freedom you give yourself while creating (inside the walls).. The idea that we always in a way must push over the line, by experimenting and exploring the unknown.
And sometimes shy and introverted artists achieve much more freedom inside their own world than others who seem more opened and social. In a way, they concentrate on their own world. Einstein said that the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

Cécile said...

I see what you mean and I agree with it... Exploration is first of all in the mind.
Nowadays it's so easy for people to travel to the other side of the world... and they think they're so brave and so original. Half of my friends leave abroad; they're studying overseas to build their resumes. However when I talk to them I'm not sure they're learning anything different... Are they really travelling? And the weird thing is, the most original, creative person I've ever met has never left the south bank of Paris.

IstvanBloggin' said...

I like that idea about how traveling is not really traveling if it doesn't change you.
What i like about traveling is the excitement of drifting through the unknown and unseen. Ray Bradbury said that half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness :)