Jelisava

To err is to wander

Setting sun over the Jersey landscape / June 2011

"To err is to wander, and wandering is the way we discover the world; and, lost in thought, it is also the way we discover ourselves. Being right might be gratifying, but in the end it is static, a mere statement. Being wrong is hard and humbling, and sometimes even dangerous, but in the end it is a journey, and a story."

"Of all the things we are wrong about, this idea of error might well top the list. It is our meta-mistake: we are wrong about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a moral flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honorable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction, and courage. And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness is a vital part of how we learn and change. Thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world."

~ from Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Shulz

The struggle it is

Early spring / April 2010

“'You are so talented' always sounds like an insult — it implies it's natural, not the struggle it is.” 

~ Christoph Niemann

Small beginnings

Prayer flag flutters in the afternoon sun / 2011

“Never despise small beginnings, and don’t belittle your own accomplishments. Remember them and use them as inspiration as you go on to the next thing. When you venture outside your comfort zone, wherever the starting point may be, it’s kind of a big deal.”

~ The Art of Non-Conformity

The bane or the blessing

Imagine a yellow house ... / Washington, DC / May 2007 

“IMAGINATION, according as it is regulated, proves the bane or the blessing of life. Without it, all is "weary, flat, stale and unprofitable;" but with it, unless it is regulated by numberless auxiliary endowments and strenuous exertion, the spectre forms of dread reality are aggravated instead of being concealed, and the victim of genius perishes under the restless workings of his own phantasy.”

~ Sir Egerton Brydges from an essay "On the Government of Imagination" published in The Ruminator: containing a series of moral, critical, and sentimental essays, 1813

Learn how to learn

"Guitar Mountain House" (a conceptual art piece using recycled textiles) in progress / Rae puts into words what I've always tried to practice: never stop learning / July 2010

“Somewhere along the line I learned how to learn.”

~ Type Designer Rae Kaiser

Skipping along rooftops

Tile roof / Opatija, Croatia / 2005

“Only the blindness of habit convinces us that we continue to live in the same place, that we see the same landscape. In truth, no place ever remains the same because light has no mind for repetition; it adores difference. Through its illuminations, it strives to suggest the silent depths that hide in the dark.”

~ John O'Donohue

The direction along which something moves

Pap's mountain house steps / Sept. 2010

“I find my bearings where I become lost.”

~ Helene Cixous

Stir the cauldron

Page 132, The Creative License

"As you awaken your creativity, you stir the cauldron of your life. Things are bound to bubble to the surface."

~ Danny Gregory, The Creative License

Spinning a mesh of threads

Glass tiles glued onto thin thread to hang in the window / July 2010

"All day you grope in a web
of invisible stars. The day sky soaks them up
like dreams. If you could see
in the light, you'd see what fires
keep spinning, spinning their mesh of threads"

~ an excerpt from Day-Blind by Chana Bloch

The puzzling dilemmas

Beautiful glasses lined up in rows -- is there a puzzle or a shell under each? / New Jersey / May 2006

“Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It's as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself — indeed, you make yourself — through the puzzling dilemmas you attract and solve. The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.”

~ Rob Brezsny