Approach your art with an open mind and an open heart.
Creative projects often have a life of their own.
You can start with a clear vision and well-defined intentions, but your art may take you in a different direction.
As much as it is your job as an artist to steer your work in the direction you want it to go, it is also your job to listen to what your work is trying to tell you as you create it.
You will find that your best creative work is often a surprise.
Embrace this part of the process and enjoy the discoveries you make along the way.
Creativity is as much about listening to your art as it is about expressing yourself.
LISTEN TO YOUR ART By Robert Van Valkenburgh Meditations of a Gentle Warrior
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One of the greatest joys of the creative process, at least for me, is surprise.
Among other creative outlets, I write every day. Some days, I start with a clear idea as to what I want to write about. On other days, I simply start and wait to see what happens.
In either case, what comes out may not be what I originally intended or expected. In fact, I feel like most of the writing I am most pleased with came through me more than it actually came from me. Quite often, if I am honest, I am more of a participating observer to the writing process than the actual author of it.
Even when I do have a clear idea about a topic I wish to explore or expound on in one of my posts, it usually starts with nothing more than a single sentence. That single idea may lead me down a straight path wherein the rest of the words come to me quite easily. It may lead me down many different paths, some of which will become other posts. Or, it may leave me struggling for understanding, for clarity, and for resolution.
For anyone reading my writing on a somewhat consistent basis, it will be observed that there is always an image that accompanies the post. This is as much a creative-aesthetic decision, that is, I like taking pictures of things I find interesting and sharing the pictures that I take, as it is a source of inspiration. Sometimes the picture inspires the post. Sometimes the post inspires the picture.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Bodyand Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
We may have a vision for what we want to create, but the medium and the materials we are working with have a say as well.
Between inspiration, intention, and creation, things often change, and the way that our work manifests may be totally different than what we first envisioned.
This is part of the creative process and it is okay.
Our job is to pay attention to what presents itself and how.
Our role is to honor what the medium and the materials are trying to tell us, show us, and teach us.
Listen to them. Look at them. Hear them. See them. Feel them. Taste them.
Explore them. Play with them. Argue with them. Grapple with them.
Love them. Hate them. Question them. Submit to them.
But, in the end, when we have done all that we can do and our work is on the page, the canvas, the recording, the film, or the plate, we must accept that the art is going to be what it is going to be, whether or not we cooperate.
Resisting the art will not make better art.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Bodyand Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
We do not necessarily get to choose what inspires us.
If we are dedicated to doing creative work, we must rely to some degree or another on inspiration. We do not always know where it will come from. It may be intrinsic or it may be extrinsic.
Our job is to show up, to be willing, to pay attention, to look, listen, and to act when it appears.
We must honor the process, respect the inspiration, follow it, channel it, organize it, and allow it to come to form through us.
We may want to go in one direction with our work, but inspiration may take us somewhere totally different, somewhere new, somewhere foreign, and somewhere we never could have predicted with our previous knowledge or vision.
The beauty of the creative process is in the mysteriousness of it, in the discovery of it, and in the divinity of it.
For those of us who are fortunate enough to be witness to our own creative process, to participate in it, and to experience it, we cannot help but to also be in awe of it.
This is neither pride nor vanity. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that we are merely willing participants on journey we do not fully understand.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Bodyand Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
Me: I’m stuck, dear. What should I write about today?
My Daughter: It’s your story. You can write about anything you want.*
Quite often, creative work begins as a flicker of an idea, a spark if you will. Most ideas, like most sparks, if not tended to properly, if not given just the right amount of oxygen and fuel, will die out. With some combination of luck and attentiveness, however, one of these sparks might get exactly what it needs to catch, bursting into a bright, beautiful flame that both warms and lights up the space around it.
Much like a fire, most creative ideas, if they are going to grow into something powerful and useful, require a lot more than one spark before they catch. Every one counts, but most flicker and fade, dying out, seeming to vanish into thin air before finding what they need in order to become something more. For this reason, if we are going to have one great idea, we must have many, many more not-so-great ideas.
We never know which spark or which idea will catch, what it will become, or to where it will lead, so we have to keep trying. Inspiration does not simply come to us. We must seek it, pay attention to it, and nurture it.
*What does this all have to do with the conversation I had with my daughter this morning while she ate her breakfast and I made my coffee? That’s the thing. I do not know. I invited inspiration. It answered. When it did, I gave it attention, fuel, room to breathe, and the result was the result.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Bodyand Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
Meditations on God 