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“An art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all…feeling is the principle, the beginning and the end; craft, objective, technique—all these are in the middle.”—Paul Cézanne

Dressed in familiar traditional garb, a Tibetan Buddhist monk hunched over a square table in the middle of the glass-enclosed atrium of the Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah, rubbing a metal rod he held in his right hand against the serrated surface of a long, thin metal funnel (called a chak-pur) in his left. As tourists of the historic district’s antebellum mansions entered the conspicuously contemporary structure to escape the sudden summer storm, joining those who intended to attend this event, the monk remained solely focused on task before him, despite the squeaking sneakers, increasingly audible chitchat, and camera flashes. The colored grains of sand flowed like liquid through the chak-pur (a result of the vibrations caused by the metal rod) on to the wooden platform, guided by the monk’s steady hand and concentrating mind.

After nearly 30 hours over several days, the group of lamas from the Drepung Loseling Monastery eventually completed the mandala, a remarkably intricate circular design composed of millions of grains of various colored sand. Once finished, it was destroyed. Read more…

“What art offers is space—a certain breathing room for the spirit.”
—John Updike

“You can’t make art with business in mind. You have to make art first.”—Jay-Z

“The important thing is never to let oneself be guided by the opinion of one’s contemporaries; to continue steadfastly on one’s way without letting oneself be either defeated by failure or diverted by applause.”
—Gustav Mahler

“Creativity means going against what you’ve learned.”
—Anthony Bourdain

“The artist should never try to be popular. Rather the public should be more artistic.”—Oscar Wilde

“There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman.”—Émile Zola

“To create one’s own world, in any of the arts, takes courage.”
—Georgia O’Keeffe

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
—Jack London