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I LOVED Gone With the Wind. I read the book several times, so i think nothing of reading a long piece of writing. ha.

how cool that you sold your work before you could hardly finish it. wonderful!

people love to watch me sculpt and sometimes i do that at shows. i also sculpt a lot at stores where i am doing a signing of my reproductions. i feel much like a trained monkey. but really, i don't mind, since it gives me something to do with my hands.

uh-oh, looking back at what i wrote i see why my website wouldn't come up for you. it's www.burdenstudio.com . and yes, i had to love him to marry him with that name, that's for sure. well, 34 years and we're hangin' in, so i guess it took.

happy painting!

Cinder, Thank you so much for sharing this! There are so many points here you made that I can relate too! Its so nice to see them written down in a concrete, basic and highly tangible way! If I could give you double kudos I would! I will have to refer to your list often. Well done! Love and Peace, Mary

Wow! so much talent that life times cannot express. I am in awe. I attempt to write (have written a novel) but to paint or sculpt to have your mind's eye seen physcially instead of mentally. Hats off to you all.

Wow, you may very well have just changed my life..ha! You described it so perfectly, and for the first time in my life, I feel validated.. Oh my God, it is so good to find others like me. It's a walk I've taken alone for so long. Great writing girl!

Thanks, I really needed that, and will probably print it as a reminder to myself.

When I was a little girl, sometimes I would be dreaming and see an image in my mind. I would wake up with such an urgency to draw it in the middle of the night. All I knew was I had to draw it right then while my hands could remember. My mom thought I was nuts. My family never did understand me, they just always called me "different". They tried to make me be like them in so many ways, and I can only be me.

I have know inside myself since I was a child, that I was called to be an artist. And I have not yet fully fulfilled "doing what I love".

In response to your writing. What is art to me? When I start a new drawing, or doing graphic design, my heart beats fast, I cannot stop until it has all flowed out of me. It is exciting, it is urgent, I usually have tears running down my face, because I don't want to blink. I too do not notice the time or temperatures..just what I call "in the zone" and can't stop until I'm done, even if I'm up all night, I have to ride that wave. I tell my friends when the muse comes back, I will have another creative surge and it is so renewing..

Thank you again Cinder, that was the most honest, full of conviction, beautiful explanation of an artist that I've ever read.

Bravo!

For years, a clear and straightforward Muse was with me. It propelled me to the greatest heights of my creativity. For the last couple of years, my Muse has wandered and Ive had to rely more on my technical abilities, and past creative designs as an artist, rather than my new 'raw and creative' ones. How I miss the infinite power of my Muse when he is at hand, Im looking for her to return, or I welcome a the discovery of a new one...

Mary, I have found the "Missing Muse Syndrome" or MMS to be a highly contagious disease that is easily influenced when things around us (people, objects, nature, thoughts, sociological events, et.al., overpower the calming and relaxing nature of our artistic expression(s). Okay lots of words that sound somewhat intelligent, but what do they mean and what can you do about the situation. For me the words mean that we become entrenched in our artistic statements because of external influences that have rattled our perceptions. They also can mean that the things that we view that used to stir our artistic side no longer excite us. You live in an incredibly beautiful part of the world. It is typically lush and beautiful in its unrefined natural good looks. Okay you do and have constantly beautiful vista's stiring your soul. Well I live in the greater Richmond, VA area. I, not being a native Virginian or even a native southerner, do not find a lot of inspiration in my surroundings. That is not to say that other people don't or that it isn't there, it is just me...my opinion, my viewpoint. My solution is to take myself out of the normal environment and go to someplace that is uncharacteristic of my normal surroundings. It doesn't have to be far away or costly. The only requirement is that it shakes your external views by an abrupt change. If you live in lush green...find a barren arid place and let the natural environment soak into your artistic self till a whole new set of ideas or ways of looking at things leaps out and says look at me, I am not green. I don't have pretty trees. I have no water, I am sand. I am grit. I get stuck in everything you eat no matter what you do. I am barren rock reaching into a barren sky like your muse I contain no life, but biology will say that is not true...there is life here, there is a different song in the wind, there is a different weave in the far off hills/mountains. There are tears and anger and heartache found in the human tracks left ages ago, there is a special new and exotic tapestry in the tracks of animals that are new to my senses.

I pray this has made sense and I will stop with just one example. It is a fact, well known to my family and friends,that I find a lot of 4 leaf clovers. I mean a lot. It is something my dear grandmother and I shared for years. I can honestly say I have never found one when I was actively seeking one, but let me walk along thinking of everything but 4 leaf clovers and they spring out of the ground at me. Obviously what I am saying is that the harder I look for something the more difficult it is to find, if I forget about it and get caught up in the energy, the vibes, the visual spectrum's presented and the sounds or lack of sounds, then I can't, paint, write, sketch, compose lyrics, compose music or anything I would call muse generated fast enough. The whole trick is not to think about any of part of your trip as being for a specific purpose. If you do that then the magic will return beating you upside the head with inspirational thoughts. by the score. I know it will happen.

Love and Peace to you Mary and a totally relaxed muse that needs to rest for a moment before it is turned on big time.

Richard

I can never make the Muse appear. I find my most creative times are when I have closed out all of the outside world's clutter from my mind. To free my mind to wonder, to search, to question..I must be "open" to receive. I think the Muse is always around, but are we paying attention when a great idea flies through our minds? Many times I will have an idea while driving down the road, I tell myself "I will remember", many times I forget after a crazy day at work. It would help me to write it down, or even voice tape ideas as they come..Maybe I will try it.