2.5.24

Thought

Its like going out there naked every night. Any one of us can screw the whole thing up because he just had a fight with his wife before the gig or because he’s just not with it that night for any number of reasons. I mean, we’re out there improvising. The classical guys have their scores, whether they have them on stand or have memorized them. 

But we have to be creating, or trying to, anticipating each other, transmuting our feelings into the music, taking chances every goddamned second. That’s why, when jazz musicians are really putting out, it's an exhausting experience. It can be exhilarating too, but always there’s that touch of fear, that feeling of being on a very high wire without a net below.

— Anonymous Jazz Bass Player – Creators on Creating.

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Spiritual teacher Ram Dass on transformation:

It’s only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.

Intention of the Day

My intention is to give and receive love freely today.

Happy Monday,

Val

1.29.24

Thought

Regardless of whether or not we’re formally making art, we are all living as artists. We perceive, filter, and collect data, then curate an experience for ourselves and others based on this information set. Whether we do this consciously or unconsciously, by the mere fact of being alive, we are active participants in the ongoing process of creation.

— Rick Rubin. The Creative Act.

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Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard on bold action:

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.

Moment of Gratitude

I’m grateful for a weekend catching up with old friends.

What are you grateful for?

Happy Monday,

Val

1.22.24

Thought

The sociologist George Herbert Meade called this “the interiorized other.” That is to say, we have a kind of interior picture, a vague sense of who we are, and of what the reaction of other people to us says about who we are. That reaction is almost invariably communicated to us through what other people say and think, but soon we learn to maintain the commentary on our own, and each thought or observation is then compared to the idea we have formed. Therefore this image becomes interiorized — a second self who is commenting all the time upon what the first one is doing — and in any given situation we must either rationalize why a certain behavior is consistent with that image, or force ourselves to change that behavior, or fail to change it and feel guilty for failing. The difficulty with this is that although it is exceedingly important for all purposes of civilized intercourse and personal relationships to be able to make sense of what we are doing, and of what other people are doing, and to be able to talk about it all in words, this nevertheless warps us. We have all admired the spontaneity and freshness of children, and it is regrettable that as children are brought up they become more and more self-conscious. In this way people often lose their freshness, and more and more human beings seem to be turned into creatures calculated to get in their own way.

— Alan Watts. What is Tao?

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Japanese Philosopher Musashi on surrender:

To prefer nothing is to embrace everything. Let go of the need for control and surrender to the flow of life, allowing each moment to unfold without judgment or limitation.

Intention of the Day

My intention today is to stay present as much as possible.

What is your intention today? 

Happy Monday,

Val

1.15.24

Thought

If any of my kids ever asked me that question, the answer would have to be:

“What I do is composition.” I just happen to use material other than notes for the pieces.

Composition is a process of organization, very much like architecture. As long as you can conceptualize what that organizational process is, you can be a “composer” - in any medium you want.

You can be a "video composer,” a “film composer," a “choreography composer,” social engineering composer" - whatever. Just give me some stuff, and I'll organize it for you. That’s what I do.

— Frank Zappa. All About Music – Creators on Creating.

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Chinese Philosopher Zhuangzi on life:

Leap into the boundless and make it your home.

Moment of Gratitude

I’m grateful for the long weekend spent painting.

What are you grateful for? 

Happy Monday,

Val

1.8.24

Thought

Forty years experience as a bacterial geneticist have taught me that bacteria possess many cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades of the twentieth century. Analysis of cellular processes such as metabolism, regulation of protein synthesis, and DNA repair established that bacteria continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus…. My own work on transposable elements revealed multiple widespread bacterial systems for mobilizing and engineering DNA molecules. Examination of colony development and organization led me to appreciate how extensive multicellular collaboration is among the majority of bacterial species. [Studies] show that bacteria utilize sophisticated mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of “higher” plants and animals to meet their own basic needs. This remarkable series of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological information processing and recognize that even the smallest cells are sentient beings.

— Stephen Harrod Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.  

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Author Paulo Coelho on life:

You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

Moment of Gratitude

I’m grateful for a wonderful start to the new year.

What are you grateful for?

Happy Monday,

Val

1.1.24

Thought

…water tends to form into spheres… even when moving it attempts to retain this spherical principle through circulation. Moving along spiraling surfaces, which glide past one another in manifold winding and curving forms, it expresses the conflict between its own natural inclination to the sphere and the force of gravity acting upon it. The current with its rhythmical arrangement in space is subject to greater or lesser rhythms in time, often according to very strict laws. A few examples from the world of living creatures will further illustrate this inner propensity of water.

Every living creature, in the act of bringing forth its visible shape out of its archetypal idea, passes through a liquid phase. Some creatures remain in this liquid state or solidify only slightly; others leave the world of water, densify, and fall to a greater or lesser degree under the dominion of the earth element. All reveal in their shapes that at one time they passed through a liquid phase.

The question however arises: Do the shapes of the living organisms merely betray the character of the watery phase through which they have passed, or is it that the water itself, impressionable as it is, is subject to living, formative forces and creative ideas of which it is but the visible expression?

— Theodor Schwenk. Sensitive Chaos.

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Artist Pablo Picasso on life:

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

Intention of the Day

My intention is to stay calm and centered as I make conscious choices today.

Happy Monday,

Val

12.25.23

Thought

I was made a revolutionary in spite of myself. Now, revolutionary outbreaks are never completely spontaneous. There are clever people who bring about revolutions with malice aforethought.... It is always necessary to guard against being misrepresented by those who impute to you an intention that is not your own. For myself, I never hear anyone talk about revolution without thinking of the conversation that G. K. Chesterton tells us he had, on landing in France, with a Calais innkeeper. The innkeeper complained bitterly of the harshness of life and increasing lack of freedom: “‘It’s hardly worthwhile,’ concluded the innkeeper, ‘to have had three revolutions only to end up every time just where you started.”’ Whereupon Chesterton pointed out to him that a revolution, in the true sense of the word, was the movement of an object in motion that described a closed curve, and thus always returned to the point from where it had started.

— Igor Stravinsky. Poetics of Music – Creators on Creating.

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Poet Rumi on existence:

The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.

Moment of Gratitude 

I’m grateful for all of the experiences I have day to day that feed my creativity and growth.

What are you grateful for?

Happy Monday and to all who celebrate, Merry Christmas,

Val

12.18.23

Thought

Once you know there’s no place to hide then anyway you wonder who are you hiding from? There’s a sikh story about a holy man who gave two men each a chicken and said: “Go kill them where no one can see.”

One guy went behind the fence and killed the chicken.

The other guy walked around for two days and came back with the chicken.

The holy man said: You didn’t kill the chicken?”

The guy said: “Well, everywhere I go, the chicken sees.”

— Ram Dass. Be Here Now.

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Astronomer Carl Sagan on our nature:

The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.

Moment of Gratitude 

I’m grateful for everyone who sent love and showed up to my exhibition last weekend. It was the most beautiful night!

What are you grateful for?

Happy Monday,

Val