The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Glimpses keep falling on my head and I pay attention to them because they often take me on unexpected creative journeys. Unlike the “guy whose feet are too big for his bed” in Hal David and Burt Bacharach’s song, these “raindrops … falling on my head” do fit. So I let them “keep falling and falling.” I never know what any of these falling glimpses might become.
Glimpses or fleeting flashes of possibilities – hunches – are invaluable intuitive moments that can lead to discovery and creativity. They often seem to come out of nowhere, but many in fact, arise from past experiences, memories and image traces. Glimpses or hunches are of you and that is why you feel an emotional connection to them. Because they feel comfortable and compatible to you, you are drawn to explore many of them further. Within them, there seems to be the possibility of creative opportunities – and that is why you give each of these glimpses a chance before you dismiss them.
“You need to give a future to those unexpected hunches, otherwise they might be lost forever. Those hunches are your points of departure. They might take you on journeys without clear destinations, without the dependable impositions of known routes, but those mysterious and intriguing destinations will be discovered.” (HAVE YOU EVER HAD A HUNCH? The Importance of Creative Thinking)
So may those glimpses keep falling on my head. May they “keep falling and falling” And may they fall on your heads, too…
a fabulous world of atmospheric colors…love the concept of raining glimpses which cause imaginative sparks to grow. I would wear a coat of many colors made from your paintings.
So Ellen, you’ve had to invoke the 11th Commandment (not the 5th Amendment), to still your addiction to ‘overwork’! And yet the ‘Glimpses keep falling on your head’! What an image! Those swirling rainbow glimpses of yours tumbling all about you from your studio walls! And please don’t forget our ‘Mega-triptych’ at the Tate Modern on London Town’s Thames later next year sometime!
Jill and John – two Js – one after the other, thank you both for your wonderful comments. Jill, “a coat of many colors” from my paintings would look great on you. John – I am trying to abide by the 11th Commandment – THOU SHALT NOT OVERWORK – but what am I supposed to do when GLIMPSES KEEP RAINING ON MY HEAD? And John, yes to our “Mega-triptych at the Tate Modern on London Town’s Thames later next year.”