In a lot of ways, I’m making these security blankets that I hope will give people a little bit of courage to do what they need to do in the world.

Finding ways to honor, appreciate, and enjoy the tedious aspects of your work will help you enormously in your path.

get comfortable with feeling frustrated and keep going. It’s part of being an artist.

Like joining a feedback group, taking classes, especially classes that stretch your skills or introduce you to new media, will almost always advance the development of your creative voice.

Become an expert by consuming knowledge, then expand your imagination and channel what you learn into your work as an artist.

Sally Mann is? Did you ever see What Remains, the documentary about her?

Sean Qualls. He reminds us that your voice becomes stronger when you “develop your vocabulary.” Of course, he doesn’t literally mean your vocabulary of words. He means your vocabulary of interests, knowledge, and ideas. We develop our vocabulary by going deep into learning and exploring the world—reading books and magazines, watching films, listeni

I ask my students in my idea generation classes to make a list of all the things in their lives they are interested in—the things they spend time thinking about or are fascinated by.

in all cases, fear thinks it’s helping us: helping to prevent us from doing something that will embarrass or humiliate us or cause us stress or disappointment. But, in reality, what fear mostly does is trigger quitting, procrastination, and numbing behaviors that distract us from showing up fully to engage in the creative process.