Established artists generally draw from their personal experience and recommend the solutions that worked for them. - Rick Rubin

Not all projects take time, but they do take a lifetime. In calligraphy, the work is created in one movement of the brush. All the intention is in that single concentrated movement. The line is a reflection of the energy transfer from the artist’s being, including the entire history of their experiences, thoughts, and apprehensions, into the hand. The creative energy exists in the journey to the making, not in the act of constructing.

When another great work inspires us to elevate our own, however, the energy is different. Seeing the bar raised in our field can encourage us to reach even higher. This energy of rising-to-meet is quite different from that of conquering. When Brian Wilson first heard the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, his mind was blown. “If I ever do anything in my life, I’m going to make that good an album,” he thought at the time. He went on to explain, “I was so happy to hear it that I went and started writing ‘God Only Knows.’ ” Being made happy by someone else’s best work, and then letting it inspire you to rise to the occasion, is not competition. It’s collaboration.

If you have an idea you’re excited about and you don’t bring it to life,
it’s not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker. This
isn’t because the other artist stole your idea, but because the idea’s time has
come.
In this great unfolding, ideas and thoughts, themes and songs and other
works of art exist in the aether and ripen on schedule, ready to find
expression in the physical world.
As artists, it is our job to draw down this information, transmute it, and
share it. We are all translators for messages the universe is broadcasting.
The best artists tend to be the ones with the most sensitive antennae to draw
in the energy resonating at a particular moment. Many great artists first
develop sensitive antennae not to create art but to protect themselves. They
have to protect themselves because everything hurts more. They feel
everything more deeply.