An Artist's Book of Inspiration: A Collection of Thoughts on Art, Artists, and Creativity

The purpose of art is to open the heart, to reaffirm to human beings that they may be the conscious builders of a new world. Far from the notion that "art is dead", creativity and art are alive and well and can still express the unique ideas needed to give shape to a humane culture, by expressing new impulses out of the wisdom of the past and by locating for each generation the ground of our common being.This collection of thoughts from artists and thinkers of the past and present has been lovingly gathered over many years in the personal journals of the artist Astrid Fitzgerald and reveals something of the mystery in which creativity finds its way from the energies of the cosmos into the imagination and faculties of the individual artist and eventually into the solitude of the studio and finally into a work of art.From the reports of mystics to the observations of scientists, these passages have been arranged in this volume to provide brief glimpses into the recesses of artistic being, into the tentative formations in consciousness, the first glimmers of imagination, the distinctive faculties of the creative mind, and the tensions of artistic expression in the workshop and the creative life.Fitzgerald's great contribution has been to gather into a meaningful collection the words of 2,500 years of genius as a resource and inspiration for all those who would break out of creative limitations and take a bold step into the future.