Rick Stitch, of Santa Barbara, is a real, live working artist. He's also approachable, creative and practical, as I recently discovered when my daughter and I dropped in at the Lux Art Institute where he is the current resident artist.
We were taking in his water-inspired paintings on exhibit and enjoying the mini pier that he created right in the gallery (complete with water), when in he walked and said hello.
He asked my daughter if she liked art, and when she said yes, he imparted some of the most practical advice for creatives I've heard.
"I found this piece of advice in a book I read," he said, "and I tell it to all my students."
"First of all, I'm always reading things about drawing and painting. Anytime I see something I pick it up, because you never know where you'll find something good."
He then proceeded to tell us that he'd picked up a book for a buck at a garage sale called something like, "How to Draw a Horse," (I don't know if Stitch is a Buddhist or not, but being open to advice from a book called, "How to Draw a Horse," sounds very Beginner Mind to me), and in it was this piece of advice:
"When you're starting out on making something, it's very important to listen to your inner dialogue as you're making it," he said. "And if your inner dialogue is telling you, 'This isn't coming out right, this is so frustrating, I'm never going to be able to draw this horse,' the thing you've got to do is to change the channel.
Change the channel on your inner dialogue to something that says, 'I'm really excited about drawing this horse,' because the only thing you can have any control over is what you put into it. You don't really have any control over the outcome, but you can control the input."
This reminded me of Anne Lamott's chapter on Radio Station KFKD in her classic book on writing, "Bird by Bird." She says, "KFKD is on every single morning when I sit down at my desk. So I sit for a moment and say a small prayer — please help me get out of the way so I can write what wants to be written."
Even though I know I have other channels to listen to, station KFKD is sometimes the strongest, so I was glad to hear Stitch's advice, because it bears repeating.
So tune into that other channel, no matter how faint, set a pushbutton, and go create. The outcome will have to work itself out from there.
View more photos and a video of Stitch at www.voiceofsandiego.org
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