Tree in my Backyard

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work–a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before.

William Faulkner, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

This morning when I read these words from Faulkner, I felt his nod of affirmation toward anyone who tries to create.  The moment class ended today, I bolted for my studio so I could give this plein air sketch begun yesterday afternoon one more push.  As I worked over the details, I thought of all artists, musicians and writers–those who try and seize those impulses in their consciousness, mull over them, and then give them some kind of recognizable form for others to see and feel.