I’m collecting a series of posts that I can run while I’m in Paris next week and Aix the week after - I’ll try to post a lot anyway - but just in case I can’t - here’s a passage from The World View of Paul Cezanne by Jane Roberts that spoke to me:

“…the artist must learn how to bide this time and lay in wait for his own creativity.  It is a strange period, for while the artist seems to himself to be doing nothing of note - arranging his studio, perhaps, preparing canvases - the creative self is working with amazing rapidity.  Yet the artist may feel empty and dry, as the shore may be empty and washed clean of shells when the tides are out.  For like the shore, the artist’s mind must be wiped clean in the same way.

     Then, with a rush, the tidal waves of emotion and sensation roar, seemingly from nowhere, and the wise artist will be prepared.  He will have rested n the meantime and not worried or berated himself over his lack of creativity.  For it is now that the artist must be his own creative self, rising above the child and man; compassionately and wisely using each of their characteristics to his own ends.

     He must ride the power of his own emotions and creativity as a man might ride the tidal waves, knowing the forces of the waters, the winds and the undercurrents.  He must capture the images that suit him from the thunderous, incessant ever-changing ones that come, it seems, too quickly.  He must decide at once - know when to capture an image in the net of his mind and hold it, so that later his craft can give it form on canvas.”

Page 122 -Entry 20  - March 17th, 1976 - excerpted from from The World View of Paul Cezanne by Jane Roberts

I will be thinking of this passage when I enter visit Aix - and you’ll see many online videos of it - I promise.