Understand Your Art

Everyone wants to understand art. Why don’t we try to understand the song of a bird? --Pablo Picasso




When crafting a novel, a poem, a story, or a work of creative nonfiction, don't insist that your work have a clear "meaning." Yes, words are your medium, but they serve a purpose beyond that. The words, like careful brushstrokes, draw your reader into deeper images, impressions, stories and feelings. The most powerful of these are too wild and beautiful to be consciously understood.