I agree. I was lucky enough to be able to chase many of my own childhood dreams. My father built me a theatre in our garage when I was about 7 years old (I later went "in the stage" professionally). When song and dance and my versions of Ophelia, Snow White and other great heroines fell on stoney ground, I moved on and opened a library, which resulted in all the books I lent never being returned because I did not understand how a library actually functioned (in later life I avoid lending or borrowing books, or anything else for that matter - so that early "outing" must be classed as a false muse). My singing voice became apparent very early and I earned myself a lot of laughs by saying I was going to be an opera singer (which I did) long before I knew what it was. My early dream of being a concert pianist was ruined by a bicycle accident (judgment on a false muse?), but the opera dream more than compensated. I loved painting and drawing, and covered any available surface with my "artwork" from a very early age. That dream had to wait a long time, but I am trying to fulfill it now. Better late than never.

False dreams/muses? Well, I thought I could be happy. That muse never kissed me, even in childhood. I learnt the hard way that happiness is momentary magic rather than a permanent disposition. But I can live with that. I have my muse to keep me warm!

BTW, I bought the book Free Play after reading the recommendation here and I can absolutely recommend it.

Oops. "On the stage not" "in" the stage. A Freudian slip? Sorry.

Hi Robert,

It was a joy for me to, once again, to reflect on the phenomenon of “The Muse” and how it inspires me to my own forms of creativity. The first thing I did was to separate my true muses from my false muses. The second thing I did was to notice that my false muses had a ‘shape-shifting’ quality. Because I’ve always been a fan of Morpheus (for reasons I won’t go into here) and all such ‘shape-shifting’ archetypes, the third thing I did was to remain with some of the ‘false’-‘negative’ muses and witness what they changed into. Wonder of wonders, the longer I stayed to witness, the stronger these less-than-comfortable muse figures became messengers of new kinds of creativity. It became clear to me that these figures represent parts of myself that I’d either been resisisting or suppressing. That felt like really good news.

Like chiaroscuro, the dark and the light, the positive and the negative work together to bring forth not only qualities of creativity, but also states and stages of being which seem, at first, difficult to imagine. What are the necessary and sufficient inner conditions for allowing this? A complex question, but the first thing which comes to mind for me is the conscious reduction of fear. What I notice right off is that this requires at least the suspicion that all things may come to me for my own good in some fashion. I know from experience that this feels like a difficult bite to swallow when pain and confusion abound. I give the suspicion free reign anyway, because I like what happens to my attention focus when I do.

So what I can say at this point is that perhaps there is no such thing as positive and negative muses. Perhaps all our muses are there to show us something important. I can’t say for sure that this is so, especially not for everyone. What I can say is that, for me, the idea that such a thing is possible allows for a perspective which I experience as ecstatic. Thanks for the letter, Robert and thanks for giving me a forum to share my experience.

Keep up the good work.

Evan

Great Article on the Muses, Robert. Building things, especially clubhouses, was my favorite childhood thing. Watching the ocean, especially when storms sent the surf over the beach, was (is) a continuing joy. I've found that my recurring subject of houses on beaches overlooking rolling surf comes from those days.

My muses are anything that provokes powerful feelings in me.

Differentiating yourself from all the other artists who paint the same subject is really only a matter of discovering how best to paint how you feel about it, not how it looks to you.

If you only paint what it looks like, then your work will lack that very elusive quality I call "soul" that separates the dilettante from the artist. Drawing, painting, colorizing are all skills that can be taught and learned. Art is something else entirely which comes from the heart, the soul and the very marrow of the bone.

Thank you, Karen. After the last newsletter The look I submitted a comment that took issue with painters calling themselves ' artists '. Some are, and some aren't. As you correctly state, painting only what something looks like can be learned while art is ' something else entirely '.

Robert Service, during the last interview of his life with Pierre Berton, insisted that he wrote rhymes. He said that poetry was much more than that.

Amen.

I don’t want to get too picky here and I’m not a linguist, except to say that language is such an important way to communicate that I try and be as specific as I can when making an entry, for clarities sake, to use correct usage in order to get my point to the most people.
“Positive, Negative, True, False” Words used in the “Working you muse” essay are not interchangeable and do not mean the same things.
A True muse would seem to conform with fact or reality, while a false muse would not conform to facts or truth.
A Positive muse would not necessarily be true or false so much as it lends itself to making one feel good or productive.
A Negative muse, again not true or false, seems to me to connote an interruptive nature and one that is distracting and unbeneficial.
While it may seem unimportant to some whether we use the correct term to describe our thoughts, if we are to truly communicate our inner most feelings about a subject, we need to take more time and think about how to say what we wish to say.
I know I will criticized for this email especially by those who think, any word in any situation is okay. Or those who think I’m simply and arrogant ass, but I feel that since this medium – email- is so limiting, without body language and tonal inflection and eye-to-eye contact that I would like to understand more clearly what people are saying. The views of others are important to me, especially about the subject of art that I take what people say seriously. I know I’m not always grammatically correct all the time, but I give serious thought to any contribution I give to this site.

Dear Robert,
The final quote by William S Burroughs "You can't fake Quality" in this letter makes me pause and ponder.
I don't think there is a more globally recognized term than the phrase "half asses"...Others may say "half baked" or "half done". Any way it is said, there is just no getting around it.
I feel so cheated when I am asked to come and see a piece of art and it just isn't finished. I don't care how good the concept was, it is the execution and how a piece reads that matters.
I think we all have a muse...our muse can even be ourselves. Good or bad, true or false, they are all part of the journey. Sometimes in life we learn a better lesson the hard way.
Muses sometimes just whisper their message to us...Sometimes I have my IPOD playing too loud.

Rick you do bring a lot to this forum and I have found that you do put a lot of thought into your responces. Even though I may not agree with them all the time, which is great about all of this. To learn from each other is the most important thing. And I think we all are doing that. Thank you for all of your insights.

I think that most of us just speak here in the voice that we speak normally. Not really giving much thought if a word or punctuation or even spelling is used in the proper application. But spending more thought on getting their thoughts out. I know that's what I do. I have learned though that the more you respond, the better you get at it. So like painting, responding gets better with practice.

On the topic of muses: As a plein air painter the muse is before me, as a studio painter, the muse comes from either a themed show that I was inspired to do or the dark experiences of my past.
For me, it's those inner demons that bring out the most felt work that evokes a responce in the viewer. It's safe to say, I don't paint flowers. LOL

Thank you again, Robert, for encouraging me to examine my inner thoughts and feelings. This letter on muses that may stem back to our childhoods was the pinprick I needed to think back to a time when I was happy and what stimulated joy and interest in me. As a person with diabetes, clinical depression, a breast cancer survivor, and now on oxygen 24/7 (no, I have never smoked), at age 68 I don't always feel that joy and interest I did in the past. Your letters help me though, and this one made me realize that I paint landscapes more than anything else because I remember visits to the bluebell woods in Scotland where I lived during WWII; the pussy willows; the old stone hump-backed bridge on the Calder, a stream that flows into the Clyde River near Glasgow; Grandma's vegetable plot and the rhubarb leaves I pretended were umbrellas; and Easter egg rolling. These stood out in a childhood marked by a father who was gone for 6 years in the British Army; he left when I was four months old--I saw him twice before I was three and then not again until I was 2 months past my sixth birthday! No phone calls, no visits--only letters if the ship didn't get torpedoed on the way. Dark town; no lights at night--I was amazed when I saw Boston from the air in 1947 when we immigrated to the United States, it was lit up and glowing like nothing I had ever witnessed.
Thank you for bringing back the joy that I felt in the woods and at the stream. I'm going into the studio today and finish an oil of bluebell woods that I've been stuck on for several months!

I agree with you, Rick, about correct usage of words. It is one of my pet peeves. The word muse is often misused. The dictionary defines 'muse' (used as a noun) as a greek goddess, or an artist's inspiration. Clearly, in this forum, we are all speaking of inspiration when we talk about our muse. To speak of a negative childhood habit and refer to it as a muse is hardly correct. How can there be true muses and falses muses? Inspiration is inspiration; it just is. It is neither true or false, nor good or bad.

Here's to all of us being inspired to aspire to great things, and having the courage to follow that inspiration.

Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so words reside in the mind of the writer and the reader.

Truth can mean many things: to make agree, certain, faithful, firm, friendly, observant, orthodox, real, straight, trustworthy, unerroneous, veracious, etc.

False can mean: deceitful, deceptive, erronious, falsehearted, illegitamate, illusory, sanctimonious, unfaithful, and untrue. Words are wonderful. We should use and reuse them well.

I understand Robert's true and false muses very well. Maybe my muses are cousins to Robert's true and false muses. Don't you hate it when those false ones trip you up?

I have often tried to define 'muse' and I have always failed. As I see it I have more than one muse... but only one at a time. I think the definition of muse is something that takes your breath away... am I all wet?

Pat, you are not "all wet" at all. You have true inspiration, or a positive muse as Robert calls it, and you follow it. That's what takes your breath away. You obviously do well. I followed my Euterpe Muse (music) from the cradle and use it to this day.
But all of us are inspired to try things which sometimes don't work out...which is discouraging...so we meditate, or go on a cruise, or just go play games for a while. The breathlessness comes back.
Isn't it great?

I would like to dedicate this entry to two muses that have helped me to create some very special drawings and paintings over my short career. One is the model Layla who died in an auto crash last year at the age of 92. She had been a model since the age of 16 and has been a muse to many an artist throughout her career.
The other model is Clark, at 70, who without his generous input I would not have created, along with many other artists, the wonderful works I have exhibit and sell today.
Thank you both for being on time, the hours sitting without complaint, the dedication and effort you contributed to my work.

This is Luke my current muse...he is wild and a just little bit trusting...