This quote crossed my path in a way that just teems with waves of creativity and the creative spirit.
Here's how it happened:
I receive emails from a wonderful artist's business coach whose work I follow. The email this week was about artists making videos about their work and process. Of several video examples she included, there was one in which this marvelous quote appeared.
The author of that video is a painter, but his inclusion of this quote by Sondheim, who is considered to be one of the greatest lyricists in the history of the theater, struck all the right notes for me. The line itself is from "Finishing The Hat," a song from the musical, "Sunday In The Park With George," which is about the painter Georges Seurat.
As I say, layers and layers of creative spirit infuses this quote that I now share with you in a painting!
"Look I Made A Hat Where There Never Was A Hat" ... Isn't that the joy of creative endeavor? To make a hat - and by "hat," couldn't Sondheim mean anything - that never existed before? Any creative endeavor, whether a hat, a painting of a hat, or a hat-making business... these are all ways of making something where it never was before; drumming up something out of nothing... and the feeling it gives you.
You don't have to be an artist or a musician to get that feeling. Anyone with a dream can have that experience.
Georges Seurat is struggling with his personal life and his work during the song as he draws in his sketchbook. This line is actually the very last one of the song. Although struggling with a number of difficulties in his life, including doubts about himself, he finishes the hat!
It is a fitting demonstration in a poetic form, that the act of creation can be hard, with a lot of inner struggles of believing in yourself. But in the end, sticking with it, you end up with "a hat," where there never was a hat.
Whatever you are creating, building or making, stay strong, keep at it and "MAKE THAT HAT."
I hope you have a beautiful week.
Harriet