I try to remember that the job - as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy - of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it.
Interpretation
Art involves embracing uncertainty and finding joy in the process of creation.
Dani Shapiro's quote emphasizes that being an artist means accepting the unpredictable nature of creativity. It suggests that the challenges and surprises faced during the artistic journey can sharpen one's skills and lead to unexpected joys, highlighting the importance of embracing uncertainty as part of the creative process.
In practice
In a speech about the creative process, one might quote this to inspire fellow artists to embrace challenges.
The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail - not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime.
Writing well involves walking the path of most resistance. Sitting still, being patient, allowing the lunatic dream to take shape on the page, then the shaping, the pencil on the page, breathing, slowing down, being willing–no, more than willing, being wide open–to press the bruise until it blossoms.
Confidence is highly overrated when it comes to creating literature. A writer who is overly confident will not engage in the struggle to get it exactly right on the page - but rather, will assume that she's getting it right without the struggle.
When we reach reflexively for something to dull an ache inside of us, in that very moment of reaching, we are hiding from our pain. We're storing it away. Tamping it down.
I am the eggman They are the eggmen! I am the walrus!
It's always seemed to me that photography tends to deal with facts whereas film tends to deal with fiction.
When you are older, you realise that everything else is just nothing compared to painting and drawing.
I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist.
The only condition of fighting for the right to create is faith in your own vocation, readiness to serve, and refusal to compromise.
I ain't never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.
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