Art is an act of the soul.....

Art is an act of the soul, not the intellect. When we are dealing with people's dreams - their visions, really - we are in the realm of the sacred. We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We are engaged in a sacred transaction of which we know only a little: the shadow, not the shape.


In our human lives, we are often impatient, ill-tempered, inappropriate. We find it difficult to treat our intimates with the love we really hold for them. Despite this, they bear with us because of the larger, higher level of family that they honor even in our outbursts. This is their commitment.


As artists, we belong to an ancient and holy tribe. We are the carriers of the truth that spirit moves through us all. When we deal with one another, we are dealing not merely with our own human personalities but also with the unseen but ever-present throng of ideas, visions, stories, poems, songs, sculptures, art-as-facts that crowd the temple of consciousness waiting their turn to be born.

Julia Cameron

I love this quote, but there is a part that I think differently about...I do think art is an act of creative intelligence and therefore of the intelligence.  I see art as a very intellectual activity and spiritual one.  Einstein was a creative mathematician and a scientist who believed imagination was more important than knowledge, but the genius of the man paired with his creative mind to give us the discoveries of an age.  I do believe that when we can measure creative intelligence we will understand artists, architects, musicians, writers and visionaries better....we will then see them and the children in school who are creative in a different light.