Hello!
Years ago my printmaking professor,Judy Stone Nunneley, www.bluejayranch.com,handed us a copy of “rules” from the artist, Sr. Corita Kent.
(did I mention Kent was born in Iowa?)
And since then these rules have been posted in all the many studios I’ve worked in. I love them because they are so honest, practical and full of common sense. I also love the way they are presented: hand stamped (yes, someone touched this paper) and slightly off-kilter in their stamping.
I will post this image of the rules along with my typed version for added legibility.
They can be found in the book, Learning By Heart—Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit, by Corita Kent and Jan Steward.
Rule 1: Find a place you can trust and then try trusting it for awhile
Rule 2: General duties of a student: Pull everything out of your teacher. Pull everything out of your fellow students.
Rule 3: General duties of a teacher: Pull everything out of your students.
Rule 4: Consider everything an experiment.
Rule 5: Be self-disciplined. this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them.
To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
Rule 6: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.
Rule 7: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.
Rule 8: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
Rule 9: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
Rule 10: “We’re breaking all of the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.”
Helpful Hints: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything- it might
come in handy later. There should be new rules next week.
Enjoy.