Creator of NerdFitness.com - A few times a month, I share one quick thought to help you level up your life, and something I am can't help but nerd out about. Let's get weird!
A fearless leader afraid of a blank canvas [The Nerd Out]
I'm slowly working my way through The Last Lion, a 3-part, 4,000-page biography of the Winston Churchill. It's so daunting that I had to employ my "1-page per day" strategy that got me through War & Peace. I just finished The Last Lion: Part 2, which covers Churchill's life as a political outcast in the years between World War 1 and World War 2. It goes over his daily routine at his home, Chartwell, and how he fell in love with two unlikely activities: Painting and bricklaying. The story of how Churchill got his start painting is as hilarious as it is relatable. At this point in his career (early 1930s), Churchill was a true political outcast, regularly losing friends and allies as he defiantly sounded the alarm about Germany's future ambitions. And at the same time, he was afraid of making an improper stroke on a stretched canvas: Hazel Lavery, a neighbor, the wife of an artist, and a gifted painter herself. Her appearance was not a coincidence...
[Churchill's wife Clementine had invited her to help Winston get out of his head.]
Hazel strode up [to Winston] and said: “What are you hesitating about? Let me have a brush—the big one.”
She splashed it into turpentine, socked it into the blue and white, thrashed it about on the palette, and delivered several huge, savage strokes on what Winston called “the absolutely cowering canvas.”
Anyone could see, he wrote, “that it could not hit back. No evil fate avenged the jaunty violence. The canvas grinned in helplessness before me. The spell was broken.”
He was delighted. This was his style; this was how he lived.
Churchill ended up becoming a fairly accomplished and talented painter, utilizing the same mentality with a brush that he used in life: His painting methods are purely Churchillian.
Confronted by a virgin canvas, he moves rapidly and decisively, giving the scene a swift appraisal and then slapping on the oils, reacting instinctively to a single theme: a villa, a temple, sailboats at low tide. I
Inspector Thompson, after hours of watching him at his easel, writes: “I would think that the man’s inner spirit is superbly calm and that he paints from it—never from the mind or intellect.”
It's easy to get overwhelmed at a blank page or an empty canvas. This is not life or death: the canvas cannot hit back. We are, however, at war with "the Resistance" (as Stephen Pressfield calls in The War of Art). It's the voice in our heads that demands each brush stroke, each word, each note, must be perfect in order for us to start. The solution, of course, is to just splash it. This is how we get out of creative debt: Splash the brush into the turpentine. Sock it into the blue and white. And thrash it about on the palette. Make huge savage strokes. Type gibberish. Play random notes. Just get rid of the blank space (shout out Taylor Swift). Who knows what might come of it. -Steve PS: If you enjoyed this newsletter, I'd appreciate it if you forwarded it to one person who might benefit, and maybe they'll sign up for the next one. ### |
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The Nerd Out Newsletter
Creator of NerdFitness.com - A few times a month, I share one quick thought to help you level up your life, and something I am can't help but nerd out about. Let's get weird!
Steve Kamb from Nerd Fitness here - just reminding you to add this new email ( steve@stevekamb.com ) to your address book and move this email to your “primary inbox!” to make sure you never miss a newsletter… okay! On to the newsletter! Today we’re going to talk about decisions.In last week’s newsletter, “Great news: you can’t have it all,” I talked about my struggles with always feeling behind, even on my fun leisure activities, and my naive belief that it was a productivity problem: “I...
The United States Men's Gymnastics team recently broke a long medal drought and came in 3rd place at the Paris Olympics. Their final performance was by Stephen Nedoroscik. Nedoroscik is a two-time NCAA national champion and four-time US National champion for the pommel horse. While the rest of his team participated and competed in the other events (rings, vault, floor exercise)...Nedoroscik sat with his eyes closed, meditating like a Jedi. When it was his time to compete, with Team USA...
I recently finished Anne Patchett's Tom Lake. It tells the story of Laura Kineson, a mom of three who has lived a Forrest Gump-esque life: in interesting situations, doing interesting things, and interacting with famous people over the decades. As she recounts her life to her grown daughters, she remembers one summer spent on the shores of Tom Lake as a performer in Our Town. During one such performance, a fellow performer had a medical emergency and missed the show, and ended up passing away...