*Typing*

Be intentional. Be intentional about your life. Be intentional about the way in which you live. Be intentional about your work. Be intentional about your friendships and your relationships. Be intentional about your conversations with loved ones and your interactions with strangers. Be intentional about your thoughts, your words and your actions. Be intentional about what you read, watch and listen to. Be intentional about what you eat and drink. Be intentional about the space you take up in a room. Be intentional about the way in which you leave a room. Be intentional about the way in which you leave the world. Be intentional. Be intentional. Be intentional. I can't think of a better way to be than intentional. Be intentional.

There is a story I am quite fond of about the French painter, Georges Braque.

He would drive through Italy with his wife, Marcelle. In each town and city, he would seek out the museum(s). Braque would pull up to the front of each museum and ask his wife to venture inside and relay if there was anything worth seeing.

Braque would say to his wife...

"Marcelle, you go in and look around and then tell me what's good in there."

I love this story for two reasons.

For one, Braque was in complete and total trust of his partner's artistic tastes. So much so, he made Marcelle his curator. For two, Braque was so terrified of spoiling his eyes, he wouldn't risk looking at "junk".

For the first two years, grapevines are practically useless. They don't produce grapes and when they do, they're so goddamn ugly and horrid they're unsellable. It's very bad business to be a grapevine farmer for the first two years. By the third year, the grapes aren't sweet enough to eat but they're sweet enough to drink. So, they're sold to winemakers to be made into Merlot, Pinot Noir, Grenache or Cabernet Sauvignon. It's not until the fourth year, that grapevines become commercial and are sold as fruit that can be eaten. The grapes are juicy and beautiful and heavy and hang from the vines like something melting. If you're going to commit seriously to something, try and give yourself at least four years for that something to bear fruit.

Creativity exists on a spectrum. At the far left end of the spectrum is the word RECOGNIZABLE. At the far right end of the spectrum is the word ORIGINAL.

Most of the work we come across on a daily basis exists on the left end of the spectrum. It's recognizable. This doesn't necessarily mean it's bad work. It just means that we've seen it before and we will probably see it again. Work that is recognizable has an easier time being understood by the masses because the audience has plenty to compare the work to. While recognizable work will never change the culture nor make its mark in the broader landscape of art, it tends to be highly commercial. This is a benefit.

Every once in a great while, we get work that is original. We get work that exists on the other side of the spectrum. At first, we might find ourselves hating this work because it's foreign, alien, strange, offensive, bizarre, etc. This is our brains way of attempting to wrap our minds around something we've never seen before. As consumers, it's important that we lean into the work we feel tempted to push away. As creatives who are after original work, it's important that we not get discouraged if it takes time for our work to catch on.

Original is recognized as original until after the fact.

Originality, at first, isn't unrecognizable.

We make art to:

Confess our sins.

Make amends.

Forgive ourselves.

Forgive others.

Find acceptance.

Feel less alone.

Tell our story.

Share our perspective.

Challenge the culture.

Change the conversation.

Pay the bills.

Get laid.

Entertain ourselves.

Say "I love you".

Decorate our walls.

Laugh so we don't cry.

Cry so we don't die.

Find God.