I think of childhood as an explosion of creativity. For most people, growing up and earning a living means leaving all that behind. But an artist never leaves that behind. Edwin Mullhouse was my way of exploring the child as artist and, under the guise of childhood, something larger.
Interpretation
Childhood is a time of creativity that many abandon in adulthood, but artists retain that childlike imagination.
In this quote, Steven Millhauser reflects on the idea that childhood is a period rich with creativity and imagination, a vital part of an artist's identity. He suggests that while many people lose their creative instincts as they grow up and take on adult responsibilities, true artists manage to preserve that childhood essence in their work, allowing them to explore deeper themes and ideas through the lens of their imaginative beginnings.
In practice
During a creative workshop, I shared this quote to inspire participants to tap into their childhood creativity.
That afternoon he told me that the difference between human beings and animals was that human beings were able to dream while awake. He said the purpose of books was to permit us to exercise that faculty. Art, he said, was a controlled madness… He said books weren't made of themes, which you could write essays about, but of images that inserted themselves into your brain and replaced what you were seeing with your eyes.
Stories, like conjuring tricks, are invented because history is inadequate for our dreams.
If, in 2014, we're still making 'white savior movies,' then it's just lazy and unfortunate. We've grown up as a country, and cinema should be able to reflect what's true. And what's true is that black people are the center of their own lives and should tell their own stories from their own perspectives.
Acting is my calling, not my career.
You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away.
Color contributes to beauty, but it is not beauty. Color should have a minor part in the consideration of beauty, because it is not color but the structure that constitutes its essence.
Every performer I talk to will, with different words, talk about the sanctity of a good standup show, how it can really feel spiritual. When everybody is laughing, fixed on the same thing, you feel like you transcend yourself.
Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.
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