Jenny Hunter Groat Jumping
Peter Groat

After we posted Good Life Project’s Creed, Jeanne McMenemy of Calligraphica, wrote us this email:

Great creed…. thanks for posting it. I’m tickled by how many times I come across thoughts on the value of uncertainty. Many years ago, one of my most influential teachers, Jenny Hunter Groat, who died in February of this year, led a calligraphy workshop called “Knowing/Not Knowing” at Green Gulch Zen Center in Marin. As a Buddhist, Jenny was all about living fully in the present moment.  She would have liked that spirit in your blog, and you would have liked her! One of the many inspirational and useful things she told us was: 

Becoming comfortable with uncertainty is essential to creativity.”

Over the years, those words have probably been more useful to me as an artist than any others.
We found another great quote by Jenny Hunter Groat, along with a video of her here :
What is it that you fear? Some artist’s say they fear the blank canvas. Others say they fear other things. Although I am never now afraid of the blank canvas, I have often in my lifetime feared something. Most often it has been fear of starting something new. In fact, I can say that I’ve been afraid of everything I’ve ever begun, but I went ahead and did it anyhow. –  Jenny Hunter Groat

 

Needless to say, we are stunned by the image of Jenny “Leaping”, that Jeanne sent us. It embodies everything we aspire to. Please click to embiggen.

 

Thanks Jeanne! 

If you’ve found illumination, joy, or inspiration in this post, please consider supporting Improvised Life. It only takes a minute to make a secure donation that helps pay our many costs. A little goes a long way towards helping Improvised Life continue to live ad-free in the world.

Support Improvised Life ♥

2 replies on “becoming comfortable with uncertainty is essential to creativity

  1. oh bummer! I really like the clean look of the new site, however nothing seems to be in the sequential order of the way it was, so that I can only look at the newest of the new things and know where I’ve stopped from my last visitation here! Is there the standard form of viewing posts (like it was before) so that I might continue to follow. Otherwise it’s all just clutter to me and I won’t be able to find things I’ve noted that I’ve liked. 🙁

    Please help me to make use of this new format.

  2. Thanks for sharing your concerns. Once you get the hang of it, you will easily be able to follow new posts. I’ll write something up.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *