Robert, how clever you are to turn the use of the nightstick into a metaphor for a tool of discipline, directing our attention again and again to our passion and not our distractions. I chuckled at your shrewd turn of phrase, and I think that Henry Miller would have certainly delighted in it as well.

Sometimes we need to be hit over the head in order to get our minds straight....metaphorically. I think I need a nightstick or two in my studio as well. There are too many distractions in my life. I need to get back on tract.

There is nothing curious about that nightstick. It is there and handy to keep meddlesome people and life's other responsiblilities at bay, those things that rob artists of the time and concentration needed to work on the art. I want one. I'll even settle for Darth Vader's light saber. Where can I order one?

I agree with Robert about the last rule changing it to making Art, however the first two rules, with regard to painters, should refer to starting other projects that have nothing to do with making Art. Often we are trying to multi task other stuff while we are painting or making our art like reading emails, working on volunteer jobs or housework. Instead while we are in the studio we should be working on stuff we are making.
I can paint several paintings at one time moving back and forth between them as things dry or need to rest while I re-evaluate, but if I start working on other less creative tasks I will loose the momentum.

I love the ad someone placed for his typewriter..."Typewriter for sale, only four letters used."

Miller was often an angry man, hence all the expletives. But there might be a simple reason for that billy club. It was used to prop open the window.

The windows are the horizontal sliding kind--wouldn't need a prop.

Working only on one "book" at a time can be translated as one "show" at a time. The many character developments, episodes, and building a main theme can be construed as assembling a collection of individual works of art.

I too must yearn for power and wish to control things as I also have a billy club hanging on a door knob. It's been with me for about 45 years. Never had to use it but would miss it if it wasn't there.

Interestingly enough, I have one as well. I thought it was a 'baling pin' used aboard the old ships with sails. Perhaps it truly is just a 'billy club' or such but I like the idea that it was used aboard ship better............oh, well........to each his own.......or some such.

In giving us Miller's eleven commandments you've provided me with one that I find most helpful - #5! How many times have I held back from working because I felt 'uncreative' and therefore 'couldn't possibly produce anything of value'... This is so important - it gives me permission to feel 'less than brilliant'. Thank you. Thank you, Henry Miller!

"To paint is to love again, and to love is to live life to the fullest." Henry Miller

I smiled when I saw the billy clubs in the photos. My father and grandfather were both gentle kind men who, I'm sure, never hit anyone, but when we went through their homes at the end they both had billy clubs hanging in a corner. Perhaps, as a woman (who was taught a bit too much submission in her childhood) I should have kept one of them and hung it in my studio. I'll just have to paint one!

The "happiest man alive"... that's Henry. Look at him -- broke, as always. But what writer wouldn't trade places with him? He's a writer's writer. Thanks for this window into the writing life.

I have a baseball bat in the corner of my studio.

It's actually a "belaying pin" Paul. A stick used to hold lines of rigging on old sailing ships. The Billy club looks a bit like one.

Yes, the billie club! Sorry, I read the entry first! Thanks for your wonderful wit and wisdom, I truly enjoy your words and thoughts.

I, too, have two "things" on my wall - a Night Stick and a Billy, both in new condition, that belonged to my father, who in the 'thirties was a BC Provincial Policeman. The items were part of his uniform and rarely used. The Night Stick was to quell unruly mobs during the riots in BC in the 'thirties, and he used to say that he felt sympathy for the strikers and would only strike them on the bottom from horseback!

The only thing on my wall that gives me pause and continues to prod me is a clock. When I was younger it was simply a device to measure and tell me what time it was. Odd how appointments then were so very important to be here or there, and on time.
The older I get, and especially this last year having lost a few souls close to me, the actual hour means so very little. But the ticking of that clock reminds me there will come a day when I will no longer paint and I will no longer write. There will be more work accrued in my earlier years than remain in my latter years. Depending on our personal decade, one can assume "XX" years of remaining productivity. Some of us will have more and some less. I hope when that time does come I can look back with satisfaction with what I do leave and what I have done.
Hmmm ... a clock without numerals with just "XX." That might be worthwhile.

Wow, that's spooky. Who keeps billy clubs on the wall? I thought they were meant for cars, since that's where my dad kept his. I know it might be handy for paintings that drive me crazy, or for use on the computer when it messes with me. And keeping the window open.

Years ago at a painters' workshop in Monterey, CA (at Asilomar), myself and several other artists visited the Henry Miller Studio/Gallery in Big Sur. Once his home, you described it perfectly. At the gift shop we all purchased white sweat shirts with the quote you used, "To paint is to love again" accompanied by some of his art work on both front and back of the shirts. Had we been bright business people we could have made a killing by buying up a bunch and selling them back at the workshop for double! Every artist wanted one. Years went by, the shirt wore out and no more are to be found. The library/studio/gallery decided not to remake them, I guess. I wish they would as it was the best looking sweat shirt I ever owned and one I was always proud to wear. It started many a conversation. If you have any influence in this matter, please voice it to the powers that be. I do still wear mine, although it's stained and minus its cuffs and more than a bit faded.

Robert, I envy you for having met Henry Miller. I never did but he probably had a greater influence on my life than any other writer or artist. Like a disciple emulating the master, I quit my job, became a writer and hit the road. (Okay, there may have been a little Kerouac and Kesey in there too.) I was a weekend painter in the early 60s and had a gallery in Palm Beach but was trying to kick the habit. I was painting figurative-abstract stuff in the manner of David Park and those west coast guys, but I didn't know where to go from there. (In those days I thought you had to go somewhere, that art progressed.) Henry gave me a way out. He said that the definition of a writer was one who wrote, and that you couldn't have freedom and security at the same time. "I knew if I became desperate enough," he wrote, "everything would fall into place." I dove headfirst into desperation.

But I didn't know the "forget yourself" part yet, so I spent the first few years working on the Great American Autobiographical Novel, as he had, until I got sick of myself, switched to the third person and spent the next five years working on the Great American Apocalyptic Novel. I never made it to Paris but got as far as Little Rock, Arkansas, before the bus broke down and my publisher (the same one who published the first bootleg edition of Tropic of Cancer here while it was still banned in the U.S.) went out of business. But while on the road I had backslid. I built an easel that fit on the steering wheel of the bus (not while I was driving!) and began stealing time from the typewriter to teach myself watercolor technique, having been seduced by the work of Hubert Shuptrine in a book of James Dickey's poems that I got from the library in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Like Henry, I thought of painting as something on the side, something to do when you couldn't write. I dreamed that when I got old and retired (from what?) I would paint. But of course I had made the addict's fatal mistake and before long I was using again. The abandoned manuscript is in my studio closet somewhere, moth food. I got part of it right: I am old and I am painting-- but that's one thing you don't retire from. As Henry said at the end of Tropic of Capricorn, "We must get going. Tomorrow, tomorrow...”

But it was Henry who threw me to the sharks, and I will be forever grateful.

Both writing and music are read in a linear fashion, but paintings are read "all at once" and only subsequently admired or condemned for their individual notes. Thank you so much for these valuable letters.

I have a sling shot.

I have my father's "British Columbia Ten Times Cubic Scale Rule"
I have no clue how it was used, but there's a metal foot at one end, and after 36" of number charts, there's a smooth, fatter, rounded wedge. Still has varnish on most of it. Scalers were hired to calculate timber, but he likely trained many of them, and calculated his own anyway.

Not ever meant as a weapon, but it stands against the wall, and reminds me of Dad and how hard he always worked.

I think Catherine's paintings are lovely! Light and delicate and somewhat ethereal. Perhaps more could be done with depth but then- would it be an improvement? It might destroy the lightness....

I just love reading all the stories people tell about their lives here! It is so fascinating. What a variety of individuals and experiences! These letters are great, for just that reason...... from what weapons they may have in their studios, to those who followed the advice of Henry Miller....Wow!

Catherine, I think these paintings are very well done but I see what you are saying. Since you are painting people, please give me a reason to care about them. They all seem rich, lovely, gentle folk but maybe they are more interesting, they have talents or quirks. Maybe you can use your sense of humour to give us something more.

Darn! Now I wish I had a billy club. About the meanest thing I have in my studio is an office stapler.

"What's wrong with this picture?" was how I took your challenge. to which, I found that the glass cupboard (next to the Billy Club) had two different sizes of paned glass. (Using left brain).

Catherine, there is nothing "so what?" about your work. Your use of color, the lost and found edges, the planes in the fabrics ... when will you be giving a workshop? :-)

I have a Black and Decker drill and no license

Catherine Stock, I think the paintings are lovely. They remind me of Sargent. The one spark you may be looking for, though, is expression. The subjects all seem to have a similar expression. The mother could have love for her children glowing in her face. The grandfather could have wisdom of years, etc. Just a thought, but all are well done.