10 Rules for Creative Projects

I was taken with Richard Diebenkorn’s ten rules for beginning a painting — a sort of manifesto that applies in various degrees and various dimensions to just about every creative or intellectual endeavor.

Notes to Myself on Beginning a Painting by Richard Diebenkorn.

1. Attempt what is not certain.  Certainty may or may not come later.  It may then be a valuable delusion.

2. The pretty, initial position which fall short of completeness is not to be valued — except as a stimulus for further moves.

3. Do search.  But in order to find another than what is searched for.

4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them completely expendable.

5. Don’t “discover” a subject — of any kind.

6. Somehow don’t be bored but if you must, use it in action.  Use its destructive potential.

7. Mistakes can’t be erased but they move you from your present position.

8. Keep thinking about Pollyanna.

9. Tolerate chaos.

10. Be careful only in a perverse way.

“Biscuit” by Mary Medrano, which we commissioned.  I am sure that we will also have a similar painting of Victory commissioned to be placed next to Biscuit’s painting.