Ikigai Thought for Today: Endless Creation
The 'painting' never ends.
Audio narration by David Marlow
Living our Ikigai is an expression of our art. It could be something traditionally seen as art, like oil painting, or something different—like my running.
Creating art is our way to connect with Ikigai.
Renown painter Arshile Gorky speaks to the endless nature of creating our art. It is never finished. We are always exploring, refining, honing, and perfecting it.
"I don't like that word 'finish.’ When something is finished, that means it's dead, doesn't it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while.
I like painting because it's something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out.
Sometimes I'm working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to – because I like to change my mind so often.
The thing to do is always to keep starting to paint, never finishing painting."1
Arshile Gorky
🌀Reflection:
🌱 What does Gorky mean to ‘never finish painting?’
🌱 What would you describe as your art?
That’s your ikigai Thought for Today.
Quest well.
Matthew Gale, "Arshile Gorky: A Biography," in Movements in Art Since 1945, ed. Edward Lucie-Smith (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001), 89.
Reminds me of Leonardo DaVinci's answer to the question, "Why so late?" when he was often late with his commissioned pieces of art. Not a few days or weeks late. Months, years and sometimes he would never deliver it. His response was, 'Because there was always something more to learn." I tell that story in every Keynote I deliver and in my programs especially when working with very seasoned Executives. No matter how many years experience we have, "There is always more to learn." :-)
Oh, and my art is organization, order. That OCD thing again!