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Stephen Nachmanovitch

Stephen Nachmanovitch Books

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“In the art of teaching, we recognize that ideas and insights need to cook over a period of time. Sometimes the student who is least articulate about expressing the ideas is in fact the one who is absorbing and processing them most deeply. This applies as well to our own private learning of our art form; the areas in which we feel most stuck and most incompetent may be our richest gold mine of developing material. The use of silence in teaching then becomes very powerful.”

NeedsFeelsWellsMayArtIdeasSometimesFactsUseFormPowerfulSilenceTeachingStudentsMinesMaterialsPeriodsAreasGoldInsightStuckDevelopingCooksVery PowerfulIncompetentAbsorbingProcessing
Author:Stephen Nachmanovitch
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“The Western Idea of practice is to acquire a skill. It is very much related to your work ethic, which enjoins us to endure struggle or boredom now in return for future rewards. The Eastern idea of practice, on the other hand, is to create the person, or rather to actualize or reveal the complete person who is already there.... Not only is practice necessary to art, it is art.”

PersonsArtIdeasHandsPracticeStruggleReturnSkillsEthicsRewardsWesternEndureRelatedBoredomAcquireWork EthicEastern
Author:Stephen Nachmanovitch
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“Here the artist is, as it were, an archaeologist, uncovering deeper and deeper strata as he works, recovering not an ancient civilization, but something as yet unborn, unseen, unheard, except by the inner eye, the inner ear. He is not just removing apparent surfaces from some external object, he is removing apparent surface from the Self, revealing his original nature.”

SelfEyeArtistObjectsCivilizationEarsOriginalsAncientDeeperSurfaceUnseenRevealingUnbornRecoveringUnheardAncient CivilizationsUncoveringArchaeologists
Book:Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
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“Brahms once remarked that the mark of an artist is how much he throws away. Nature, the great creator, is always throwing things away. A frog lays several million eggs at a sitting. Only a few dozen of these become tadpoles, and only a few of those become frogs. We can let imagination and practice be as profligate as nature.”

ArtistImaginationPracticeMillionsSittingMarkLaysCreatorEggsThrowingDozenFrogsBrahmsTadpolesThrowing Things
Book:Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
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“The power of mistakes enables us to reframe creative blocks and turn them around...The troublesome parts of our work, the parts that are most baffling and frustrating, are in fact the growing edges. We see these opportunities the instant we drop our preconceptions and our self-importance.”

SelfFactsTurnsOpportunityMistakeCreativityCreativeGrowingImportanceEdgesBlockInstantFrustratingTroublesomePreconceptionsSelf-importanceCreative Block
Author:Stephen Nachmanovitch
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