6.
I mention them now,
I will not mention them again.
It is not lack of love
nor lack of sorrow.
But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.
I give them--one, two, three, four--the kiss of courtesy,
of sweet thanks,
of anger, of good luck in the deep earth.
May they sleep well. May they soften.
But I will not give them the kiss of complicity.
I will not give them the responsibility for my life.
-- Mary Oliver, "Flare"
The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love -- whether we call it friendship or family or romance -- is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.
-- James Baldwin
You may be exhausted from holding things and be disheartened. And even weep if you are very emotional. Which could be anyone on any day. With good reason. But then there is the next moment and the next day and...hold on[.]
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
It is hard work to hold everything and it never ends.
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
Objects around us hold our attention and our love.
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
The terrors of the world exist. And we are wounded. It would be so nice to never be afraid. But I am afraid that is just not possbile.
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
If you meet the Holocaust, you can never escape its grip. You are obliged to feel it reverberate through all things for the rest of your life.
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
How much I love things and the stories they tell.
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
When I think about (Cézanne and his wife Hortense) disagreeing, bickering, being sullen, brooding and moping and then him painting cherries, or trees, and painting her over and over, I am heartened. And settled inside. Because every day is a struggle, and it is not easy. But if you can paint a bowel of cherries, that is something.
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgement.
-- John F. Kennedy
All these prizes are nice, I appreciate them. I don't go crazy about them -- you have to do your work whether you're recognized or not. The real deal is doing it the best you can do it and that's it. That's its own reward.
These words are shared in the spirit of Motherhood with gratitude to those who nurtured and held us, and with the knowing that we must ultimately learn to give that same tenderness to ourselves.
-- Richard Blanco
The humility of being a student is crucial to being a good musician, to being a good human being. When we stop being a student, we become an old fart.
-- Flea
(My students) remind me of the belief in endless possibility and the thrill of discovery. That moment when a student encounters a sentence that names something they felt but never had language for, that's profound.
That's why I loved [Lucy Dacus' album] Historian. I love what (Dacus) had to say about you being a historian of all the moments: If you don't write it down or take documentation of it, people won't know.
Sometimes art is showing us what is wrong or good or fun about the world we inhabit, but other times it's showing us a made-up world, with, for instance, trolls and mermaids, or magical old-lady detectives.
-- Brian Eno and Bette A., What Art Does, p. 84
The things we care about are the things we make art about. We frame them with our attention. Art is proof of care.
-- Brian Eno and Bette A., What Art Does, p. 82
What an artist chooses to write or make drawings or songs about, can draw our attention to certain worlds. It tells us that somebody takes something seriously, perhaps finds it beautiful or threatening, and invites us to rethink how we feel about it.
-- Brian Eno and Bette A., What Art Does, p. 82
