Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thought for the Day

Not all art has to be useful to an audience. A part of it
should be out of love of the art form, of wanting to express
a feeling regardless of the external outcome. If I'm writing
to be useful, that's different from writing to explore my
feelings and experience. . . I have to dedicate myself
 to one intention or the other.

__________________________

* Quoted in Fear.Less, "Patti Digh: Say What You Must", October 13, 2011 (This is an excellent essay.)

Patti Digh, Co-Founder of The Circle Project, Motivational Speaker, Author of Life Is a Verb (skirt!, 2008), Creative Is a Verb (skirt!, 2010), Four-Word Self-Help: Simple Wisdom for Complex Lives (skirt!, 2010), and What I Wish for You: Simple Wisdom for a Happy Life (skirt!, 2011).

Patti Digh Blog, 37 Days

3 comments:

Louise Gallagher said...

Lovely.

S. Etole said...

What an enjoyable essay and quote.

Anonymous said...

I am thinking...for me, art is sharing; where it comes from, as well as the process, and where it goes. It is all a process of things being shared. Much like everything else that is done in life.

I can understand the need to dedicate oneself to a certain intention to begin with, and yet, i am not sure that anyone can, or should, completely stick to that one intention throughout the whole process. Other intentions surely make their way into our head and heart as we continue to write. For good or bad, we are multi-intentional beings.