On August 19, a Writing Prompt was posted encouraging you to rewrite the story of your parents’ lives, with the message that writers and artists can use their imaginations to transform a reality which they may not like into something different, perhaps something quite wonderful and different
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Yesterday (Sept. 5, 2008) there was an article in The New York Times (”Exploiting the Ordinary to Create the Ingenious”) in which the writer commented on a ”Pregnant Woman” sculpture that Pablo Picasso created. The sculpture shows a pregnant woman with big breasts and full belly. The author relates an anedote: ”Francoise Gilot, Picasso’s lover at the time, said he made ‘Pregnant Woman’ as ‘a form of wish fulfillment’ after she refused to have a third child.” Thus, when Picasso couldn’t get his live baby, he did ”get” one by working with pottery and clay to create a sculpture of a woman with child.
And there, in a nutshell, is the power of the creative process of any artist –whether writer, painter, sculpture or musician — to make something happen through the power of imagination and creation and sheer will. Creating is just a matter of harnessing the special talents you do have to make something new.
I write all this to encourage you in your own exploration as an artist. Yes, you are an artist; each of us is an artist in our own special way as we view the world and life through our own particular sensibilities. No one sees things the way you do — that is your unique gift. Respect your power to create through your wonderful imagination. It will never fail you (I speak from personal experience).
Please share with us what you are now creating — it will give all of us more courage to try new things.

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