“If I were a poet and I could feel the beating drum
Just behind the material world
I’d give word to mystery
I’d name the things in every heart”

-Surface of Things | Hughes & Wagner

I appreciate genius wherever I find it and often it’s found in some dark corners. The most creative people are often broken in both peculiar and obvious ways; think Kurt Cobain.

I for one believe we are all broken and some of us hide it better than most, those who are in touch with their brokeness can reach into that pain and pull out beauty. That does not mean we overcome that pain, I wish that were the case. I wish creating out of pain would cure the very pain that inspired that pain.

Marwencol is the story of art out of pain:

“After being beaten into a brain-damaging coma by five men outside a bar, Mark builds a 1/6th scale World War II-era town in his backyard. Mark populates the town he dubs “Marwencol” with dolls representing his friends and family and creates life-like photographs detailing the town’s many relationships and dramas.”

Mark was an artist prior to the assault that changed his life and made his hands unsteady to the where he could no longer draw the way he used to.

Why Marwencol inspired me

All too often we fail to recognize we are one moment away from the edge of madness/failure/bankruptcy/{insert fear} as creatives and I think we surpress creative energy when we work to conform to the norms and definitions laid before us. Operating out of external expectations is paralyzing and the enemy of innovation. So go make something today because you love it and it gives you life…maybe share it with the world.

“Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and live by what they hear. Such people become crazy or they become legend“

- Jim Harrison