Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it.
Interpretation
Creativity thrives on the material around us, but requires preparation to harness that potential.
In this quote, Twyla Tharp emphasizes the importance of recognizing the creative potential in everything around us. She highlights that while all experiences and materials can contribute to one's creativity, without proper preparation and the ability to fully engage with them, these elements may go unnoticed and unutilized.
In practice
In an art workshop, to inspire students to embrace all forms of creative input.
Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.
I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft.
Animation is the one type of movie that really does play for the entire audience. Our challenge is to make stories that connect for kids and adults.
Art really has its source in the transcendent, the unmanifest field of pure consciousness, which is the non-changing, immortal field of all possibilities...When the awareness of the artist is in tune with this center of infinite creativity, his piece of art breathes fullness of life, nourishes the creator, the artist, and inspires his admirers with waves of bliss.
The commitment to working at poetry is important because a poet is a maker, and a poem is a made thing. We have to honor our feelings by working to transform them into something meaningful and lasting.
The music is really about sharing an experience. That's why we call it Stay Human. It's like we're sharing this genuine human exchange.
Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed.
Why, I just shake the buildings out of my sleeves.
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