What makes artists create day after day?  How do they make music or art that is greater than themselves?                                                                         

When Canadian songwriter, Joni Mitchell was 26 years old she wrote, "Woodstock",  one of the most iconic rock songs of her generation. At her disappointment on missing the 1969 Woodstock festival due to managements refusal to allow her to miss the Dick Cavett Show the following Monday after the festival, she resigned herself to watch it on TV.

Mitchell recalls: "It hurt... it was like I was the grounded daughter, but the boys get to go.  Most of the song was written on the last night of the festival, out of frustration of being disallowed to go..."

She later hinted at where her desire to write comes from. “In some ways, my gift for music and writing was born out of tragedy, really, and loss.”

There are many reasons and motivations about why art is created. Some thru pain, some thru joy and others out of practice.

Many find the act of creating an engaging process that they feed on. The mind is engaged and focused in a way that blocks out all else.  There are moments of connectivity between the artistic disciplines that mesh together and inspire.  But most remarkable is the void of time.  The absence of any perceived time elapsing.  Everything is suspended but the matter in which you are engaged in.  There is nothing that interferes with that moment. Nothing that can. Nothing that could.  It is all. If ever there was a glimpse at eternity it must be here.

Nothing else matters as you are entranced in the process of making, finding, discovering, seeking, looking, listening for what may come, what can be.  It's as if you are sitting by a pool of water and pulling out bucket after bucket of pure gold.  The infinite source of content and inspiration that is continuous. Endless. Eternal.  It can only be stopped by you. It only stops when you stop.  It's a flower that gives its fragrance continuously for you to enjoy. 

It's like a trance. A dance that you are active in.  If you want to continue to enjoy it you must learn the way, remember the way there and learn to stay longer and longer. 

Managing this "trance" is how you learn to live in the practical world.  If you want to be a productive artist you will learn, manage and engage this process.

It is possible to translate every emotional experience into art if you wanted.  It is the craft.  Some consider art as pure emotion made tangible in another form.  A form that you can share and enjoy forever.