Ficly

Exploration

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
~T.S. Eliot

For me the purpose of any artistic endeavor is exploration. A painting can lead you down the tortured streets of Guernica. A symphony may take you the heights of eroica. A sculpture can put you right back in the golden age of Greece. As a writer where will you take your reader?

Aside from where the consumer of art can be lead, there is where the artist himself may wander in the creative process. From the depths of one’s own guilt may come a masterpiece of suspense set to the beat of a guilty heart. One man’s search of boundless expression could produce seemingly random paintings that still say so much. As a writer, to what well will you go for inspiration?

May the journey be kind to you, and the discoveries worth the exploration.

6 comments Posted 2009-12-23 Author: THX 0477

Comments

  • Horrorfan13

    I am always surprised at what I can produce from my mind. This is short but wonderfully written!

  • g²LaPianistaIrlandesa

    I echo Horrorfan; as short as this is it still says a great deal. I actually wrote about art as exploration for a scholarship essay just the other day. I’ve noticed that some of my inspiration has been getting more and more random, to the point that it causes me to question what sanity I might have left, “Questionable Sanity” being a more recent example. But, random inspiration’s sometimes the best, I think: it has more potential for examination and exploration.

  • scratch'n'scrawl

    Using the term ‘exploration’ in relation to my art is ideal, and one that has eluded me for a long time. When people ask me what type of art I do, usually sometime after they have seen (or heard me talking about) how impassioned I am about the arts, I often find the best answer I can come up with is to say I simply enjoy ‘playing’.

    I sometimes draw, sometimes write, occasionally will sculpt, and love to craft too. Reading and looking at others’ art inspires me and gets me excited. And the key to all of my artistic passion is creativity: making something where there wasn’t something before.

    I don’t specialise, nor do I excel in any one genre, but the exploration of whatever it is that I choose to excrete my creativity through is a major factor. As a writer, artist, musician, and reveller, I often know not where I shall conclude each new adventure, but the exploration is essential as I recognise the journey being as vitally important as the destination.

  • ElshaHawk (LoA)

    Maybe we each should make a resolution to ‘try something new’ in our creative endeavors. This year I tried cyberpunk. I wrote a story comprised of poems. I began a series blog. I found new book writing websites and learned a few more tricks. I read new books by unheard of authors. I made new friends. Who knows what the new year will bring?

  • Marli

    Exploring all the senses. What a world we have. I utterly agree THX.

  • stargazer1960

    Performing and visual arts often inspire me. There is a husband/ wife pair of artists in the Hocking Hills area of Ohio that exemplify writing and the arts. She is a painter and classical pianist. He is a writer. They inspire each other and others. It is phenomenal.
    The arts in all their forms make us human. Vedran Smajlović, the cellist of Sarajevo, knew this.