Showing posts with label Eden Maxwell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eden Maxwell. Show all posts

Sunday, August 03, 2008

An Artist Empowered: you can't outsource your soul work



Eden Maxwell

Many artists and writers have told me that they resonate with this excerpt from my latest book, An Artist Empowered:

Although the account described below is about writing, the point is vividly relevant for all creators. While reading about the travails of other artists, and how they overcame difficulties in their life quests is certainly inspirational, it is still, at the very best, secondhand information, which is exactly what it sounds like.

“In 1969, Steps, a novel, by Jerzy Kosinski, won the National Book Award. Six years later a freelance writer named Chuck Ross, to test the old theory that a novel by an unknown writer doesn’t have a chance, typed the first twenty-one pages of Steps and sent them out to four publishers as the work of ‘Erik Demos’. All four rejected the manuscript. Two years after that he typed out the whole book and sent it, again credited to Erik Demos, to more publishers, including the original publisher of the Kosinski book, Random House. Again, all rejected it with unhelpful comments—Random House used a form letter. Altogether, fourteen publishers (and thirteen literary agents) failed to recognize a book that had already been published and had won an important prize.”

—from Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews & Rejections

Painter, writer, and kiteflier of some note, Eden Maxwell grew up on the mean streets of the inner city and fought his way out of the projects to find his walking shoes. He has contributed to many publications--from Popular Science to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and his art is in private collection here and abroad. Eden's the bestselling author of Kiteworks and The Magnificent Book of Kites, Sterling Publishing; he's also ghostwritten books for HarperCollins and Kensington publishers.

Eden blogs regularly about purpose, meaning, and persevering as an artist on his website--where you can also find out more about his exciting new book An Artist Empowered: Define and Establish Your Value as an Artist—Now (2008), you may email him at artist@edensart.com

www.edensart.com



Read more!

Saturday, July 26, 2008

An Artist Empowered: you can't outsource your soul work


Eden Maxwell

BENEATH THE MATRIX

There is no more important or powerful a ‘substance’ than intuition, which is the conscious tool each artist can use to cultivate his gift in the garden of culture.

Intuition seems abstract when you can’t hold it in your hand. But this makes perfect sense as we are engaging the metaphysical. Remember, intuition is first experienced as a sensation, a feeling, or a vision, not as thinking in words.

Somehow, intuition, which is potential but not yet inevitable, opens a direct pathway into the fabric of consciousness that is otherwise unavailable. This live and healthy connection is a behind the scenes look into the raw data, the cosmic mosaic and language of information as it is—in the quantum mechanics model of primordial matter—without the selective but necessary filters for survival of our subconscious mind; in the realm of intuition, both perceptions and thoughts are purified of nonsense to reveal and manifest themselves as shape and form, design and color—art and poetry, or the double helix.

Painter, writer, and kiteflier of some note, Eden Maxwell grew up on the mean streets of the inner city and fought his way out of the projects to find his walking shoes. He has contributed to many publications--from Popular Science to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and his art is in private collection here and abroad. Eden's the bestselling author of Kiteworks and The Magnificent Book of Kites, Sterling Publishing; he's also ghostwritten books for HarperCollins and Kensington publishers.

Eden blogs regularly about purpose, meaning, and persevering as an artist on his website--where you can also find out more about his exciting new book An Artist Empowered: Define and Establish Your Value as an Artist—Now (2008), you may email him at artist@edensart.com

www.edensart.com
Read more!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

AN ARTIST EMPOWERED

You can't outsource your soul work

Eden Maxwell

Mind Control

It can be insidiously easy to fall into mindless cultural bias, customs, rote, habits, and meaningless, yet powerful belief systems. Aware of these generational traps, creators are mindful to avoid them. Can you recall the last time your standard had been challenged?

There is nothing new about mind control in images or words.

Recall George Orwell¹s dire vision of the future in his 1949 novel Nineteen-Eighty-Four where newspeak (the politically correct speech of Oceania) manipulated the language and, as a direct result, controlled the minds of its citizens--where Œreality¹ meant white was black, black was white, and where Œthoughtcriminals¹ received their final form of punishment in Room 101 as dispensed by the Ministry of Love.

Freedom of speech must be matched with freedom of thought--this is the power of art made manifest. How can you create original work if you think and feel along party lines, or in clichés?

__________

Painter, writer, and kiteflier of some note, Eden Maxwell grew up on the mean streets of the inner city and fought his way out of the projects to find his walking shoes. He has contributed to many publications--from Popular Science to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and his art is in private collection here and abroad. Eden's the bestselling author of Kiteworks and The Magnificent Book of Kites, Sterling Publishing; he's also ghostwritten books for HarperCollins and Kensington publishers.

Eden blogs regularly about purpose, meaning, and persevering as an artist on his website--where you can also find out more about about his powerful and exciting new book, An Artist Empowered: Define and Establish Your Value as an Artist--Now (2008); you may email him at artist@edensart.com

http://www.edensart.com Read more!