Favorite Quotes from 'Learning by Heart' by Corita Kent and Jan Steward

This books was recommend as additional reading to The Launch, a course taught by Olivia Crandall through Index Space in the fall of 2022. Really enjoyed reading it and drawing parallels to The Artist's Way.

“And we work n it so that we and our children may have a world in which to fulfill our reason for being here-which is to create.” (p. 5)

“There is a Zen statement, After ecstasy the laundry. Which we might reverse to say. After much laundry comes the moment of ecstasy. The smaller ecstasies (arts) keep us nourished so that we have the strength to continue working on the larger art.” (p. 5)

“To work, play, see, touch, laugh, cry, build, and use it all-even the painful parts, and survive with style: that’s what Corita taught. She taught that art is not something apart from life and living.” (p. 6)

“She taught me how to work hard, and the keep on working ‘til it all came round right, and then how to play hard after that, and probably the best thing was when work and play were the same.” (p. 7)

“Corita told me my work was okay and that I was okay and sometimes I was more than okay and so was my work. And then she pushed and shoved and kicked and scolded and bribed me into believing it. She never said an untruth or gave false praise. She always found something good in the worst piece.” (p. 7)

“She saw the finished work as a prelude to the next project.” (p. 10)

“This book has, thank goodness, turned out much less poetic and beautiful than I had initially hoped. It’s meant to be a workbook.” (p. 11)

“In watching the cheaper side of television, we are putting our valuable tool (our eyes) to very destructive uses, and we are not growing up.” (p. 13)

“No amount of reading about looking can do it for you. Do it. Look at those shadows.” (p. 16)

“This kind of looking requires shutting out everything else, slowing down, and being very patient.” (p. 19)

“Nothing is the same. No thing is the same. Everything is itself and one of a kind.” (p. 21)

“Work in areas where you are unsure, in places you’ve not been before.” (p. 21)

“You can then view life without being distracted by content.” (p. 26)

“Always be ready to see what you haven’t seen before. It’s a kind of looking where you don’t know what you’re looking for.” (p. 28)

“The kind of looking described so far-noting details to be written in the sense diary, contour drawing, and looking with a finder-is a kind of slow-looking, an appraisal of details, and best done alone.” (p. 36)

“Fast-looking can be done with lots of people around, and it builds energy. It is the kind of looking done from the windows of moving trains, at parades, or in crowded museums just before closing time. Images are speedily processed and stored in the memory banks for future use.” (p. 36)

“Charles said that first step in designing a lamp (or anything) was not to ask how it should look-but to ask if it should even be. He always started fresh at the beginning. He showed us how to develop principles rather than follow formulas.” (p. 41)

“We are each other’s sources.” (p. 43)

“List ways to perform a habitual task in a new way.” (p. 52)

“Make things easy for yourself and use the least complicated, most readily available techniques and materials.” (p. 55)

“This information was generated by the need to solve a problem-the problem as source.” (p. 55)

“You get excited, you talk to people and people talk to you, you touch and they touch you. All this magical, like some endless celebration.” (p. 57)

“When we write about what we see, we can forever retain the connective details in our sense diary, and our visual skills are enhanced by the effort of description. Don’t try to make literature when you are describing how a broad, flat leaf looks with the sun coming through it. Be a reporter-just the facts. Anything we do with care, curiosity, and feeling, will be good. Time spent working with words is never wasted.” (p. 62)

“Assignment: Make a list of twenty-five short quotes from favorite writers. Find twenty-five quotes, not considered literature from sources such as newspapers, periodicals, or encyclopedia's that seem to fit the definition of poetical. Compare them with quotes from your favorite writers. Take your favorite quotes from each source and put them with five pictures of mountains. Keep all quotes in your sense diary for future use.” (p. 63)

“So the structure is there for you and you are also the structure-your particular gifts help shape it.” (p. 65)

“Limitation is what differentiates a flood from a lake.” (p. 70)

“When asked why he had build them, Rodilla said he did so because he wanted to make something big on the landscape. He didn’t say he wanted to be a great sculptor.” (p. 71)

“When the focus is on something tangible, the course of the thing will carry you, rather than you carrying it.” (p. 71)

“Sometimes the needs define the goal. At other times the goal defines the needs.” (p. 75)

“Such a structure-formed out of the process of defining goals and then achieving them-almost guarantees success.” (p. 77)

“If answers come too quickly, it often means that we don’t really understand the question, as need to keep asking.” (p. 83)

“Assignment: A structure is a series of a short-term goals. These limited goals can lead to the completion of projects so fantastic that you might never have undertaken them because they seemed overwhelming. The assignment is for you to make a list of five short-term goals, define their structure, and then make a list of give long-term goals of which the limited goals could be part.” (p. 84)

“Assignment: Make a calendar. Begin with the basic list of requirements. Where will it be? Who will use it? Will it include holidays and special days? Birthdays of family, friends, famous people, your dog? Zodiac signs, phases of the moon and planets, natural occurrences (the time when the orange tree flowers, etc.) Will there be space for appointments, jobs and deadlines? What’s happening-concerts, exhibits, when is the circus coming to town? Of what material will it be made? What will you use to write on it? Can you see it from across the room? Should the pages indicate weeks, months, days, hours-or all of them?” (p. 87)

“We call those difficult times…the dark times. I suppose these times are much the same as winter and late fall when things seems not so bright and flowery, but lovely and dignified in their own way, as things get quieter.” (p. 92)

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire fragment by fragment on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularity, like a laborious mosaic.” (p. 94)

“Everything I do adds up and goes into the act of painting. I have an idea for making something or I have a commission to do something or I have a deadline…and I always have a kind of natural resistance to getting down to it. Somehow I feel that this kind of natural resistance it quite healthy-because all the information, sources, and ideas need cooking before they can be served. So I go on living and I go on doing what might seem to be very uncreative things like shopping or coking or washing the dishes or answering the phone or writing letters-and sometimes data comes out and asserts itself into my consciousness and I live with it for a while.” (p. 99)

“He who sees the inaction that is in action and the action that is in inaction is wise indeed.” (p. 99)

“Later on, these children, grown into young adults competing for admission to universities, are penalized for ‘right answers’ are rewarded for creativity-the ability make connections and to play around with materials and ideas.” (p. 104)

“Lessen the prestige and the expectations of art and turn your endeavors into a good, solid, working job-like using hammer and nails. Thinking about making something great that should be admired for centuries is enough to freeze anybody.” (p. 123)

“Workmen in ancient Egypt dealt with one stone at a time-with its placement and relationship to the previous stone-and were not encumbered with the immortality of the finished work.” (p. 123)

“What power: your own printed word.” (p. 134)

“Don’t feel disappointed if your stamp is not the same as the original. It is a different thing and has its own life and use.” (p. 138)

“Keep looking for books that are made or bound in different ways. Look for books that do more than just sit there-books that invite you to play.” (p. 143)

“The important thing is caring about making something well.” (p. 145)

“Letting yourself go free, playing around until something comes, is often very hard work.” (p. 154)

“Was that free time or was that simply the early part of some work?” (p. 154)

“I asked if this was a special day and was told (through three translators) that Yes, the sun had come up again.” (p. 157)

“Come to the edge, he said. Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them…and they flew.” (p. 164)

“She tried, she says, to make things come alive-not necessarily to make them funny.” (p. 172)

“Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules: Rule 1 - Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while. Rule 2 - General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher. Pull everything out of your fellow students. Rule 3 - General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students. Rule 4 - Consider everything an experiment. Rule 5 - Be self disciplined. This means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self disciplined is to follow in a better way. Rule 6 - Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail There’s only make. Rule 7 - The only rule is work. Rule 8 - Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes. Rule 9 - Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think. Rule 10 - ‘We’re breaking all the rules. even our own rules and how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.’ John Cage. Helpful hints - Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything-it might come in handy later. There should be new rules next week.” (p. 176)

“Ordinary things will be signs for us of our neighbors’ needs, of our responsibility.” (p. 184)

“Eat first, poetry later.” (p. 184)

“There is no center, no urban form, no great landmark. There are miles and miles of freeway, low, nondescript buildings, and sometimes on a clear day, spectacular views of the ocean and surrounding hills.” (p. 194)

“There was no smog, unseasonable heat, or rain (which would have been disastrous for all the paper and cardboard). Freeway gridlock never materialized-in fact that traffic was very light because people took special buses and working hours were staggered. Crime was down and there was a spirit of welcome and generosity. We were, at last, so proud of our beautiful city.” (p. 197)

“When we are immersed in the experience of celebrating together, we may be nameless, our part (to others) unclear, but we will be an essential ingredient in what e.e. cummings calls a joy that wasn’t and isn’t and won’t be words.” (p. 198)

“The mind can be a noisy and cluttered place that can drown out the heart.” (coda)

“It takes a little courage to shift gears and just ‘do’ or ‘be.’” (coda)