I remember first hearing this books title before knowing it was a book, as it was the title of a song by Over the Rhine...one of my favorite bands.  But that has nothing really to do with this blog...

  One of the quotes I  have underlined says, "When I hear a superb pianist, I can't wait to get to my own piano, and I play about as well now as I did when I was ten.  A great novel, rather than discouraging me, simply makes me want to write.  This response on the part of any artist is the need to make incarnate the new awareness we have been granted through the genius of someone else...It is beauty crying out for more beauty."                  

Feeding oneself on others talents...at local coffee shops where a singer songwriter shares his heart, in a gallery where artists depict their worldview, in the Scriptures, soaking in God's creativity in nature, and  sinking your teeth into others imaginative stories...it's all essential to the artist.    It "enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of creation behind the universe."

A later quote in Madeline L"Engles lovely book states, "An artist of any kind is like a violin which has to be tuned regularly; it doesn't stay in tune by itself.  Any musical instrument has to be played or it dies, quite literally."

 I've been writing so much more poetry lately than ever...and I've also been getting out into the nooks and crannies of the city to see what others are creating.  We must stay in the practice of soaking in others expressions of creativity so we can then go home and practice our craft as those who are inspired. 

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