the mind apprehends things in patterns, I told myself

back in a journal from December 2003, when we were in Upstate New York. So how to deal with that?  I had been reading Gertrude Stein, who wrote, in A Geographical History of America, that "in a real master-piece there is no thought .... in a master-piece you cannot be right." It can't be self-conscious, or worried --  so how to start? Where to start? I put together a sketch from pieces of a French landscape that had been bouncing around in my mind:

I had also been reading Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit, where she lists her five "big fears"; (the following block is all quotes from Tharp):

1. People will laugh at me.

2. Someone has done it before.

3. I have nothing to say.

4. I will upset someone I love.

5. Once executed, the idea will never be as good as it is in my mind. (p.22)

Her answers to those fears:

1. Not the people I respect.

2. Honey, it's all been done before. Get over yourself. 

3. An irrelevant fear... if the dancers don't walk out on you, chances are the audience won't, either.

4. You never know.... the best you can do is remind yourself that you're a good person with good intentions. 

5. Alberti said 'Errors accumulate in the sketch and compound in the model! But better an imperfect dome in Florence than cathedrals in the clouds'  (pp. 22-3)

So there is no room for fraidy-cats.