Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line.
- Rollo May, The Courage To Create
Two Egrets Limited Edition Print
Heron Dance is a nature artist's exploration of the creative process and an expression of reverence for the beauty and mystery of the natural world. Based on the personal journal of nature artist Roderick MacIver, it is an effort to understand the territory that underlies creative work. Over decades of reading and thinking about art and artists, he's done hundreds of interviews and collected thousands of quotes from books, articles and films that explore the lives, foibles, adventures and misadventures of painters and writers, rock, classical and jazz musicians, poets, novelists and sculptors.
The Heron Dance Creativity Journal offers a wide variety of perspectives on the joys and struggles of living a creative life.
Of particular interest is the inner world underlying creative work—the relationships of artists with their imaginations, their intuition and dreamworld. As artists, we each have a repository of images and memories from experiences, for instance experiences in the natural world, from books we’ve read, films and art we’ve seen, people we’ve met who have affected our lives and work, and we seek to take all that, and the technical skills we’ve worked hard to acquire, and from that create a new combination, a new insight, a new beauty that affects people on different levels, including emotionally, spiritually and psychically.
We create out of that which is most unique about us. Our creative work gives us energy. Hopefully. If it wears us down, our future as artists is likely limited.
What fascinates me about the art or creative iceberg is the underwater part—the spirituality, the intuition, the dream world, the creative imagination, the discipline, the relationship to solitude, and even seeming irrelevant details: the role of afternoon naps in our lives. Meditation. Journaling. Why are prominent artists so idiosyncratic? Creativity and its relationship to rebellion. Creativity as an engine of change in our culture. Why the interest in mind-altering drugs? Well, lots of people have that interest, but why especially novelists and rock and roll musicians? How about sexuality and artists? What about the studies that conclude artists tend to have abnormally high sex drives? How about the relation to sacred places, the places of reverie? The deep solace that I find in the woods and on wild rivers and that others find in gardening, as a for instance? Our creative wellsprings. Solitude. An artist needs solitude to build the relationship with himself, with herself, from which creative work evolves.
And an artist needs friends, people of like mind and goodwill, as support and encouragement on the journey—a journey that requires persistence in the face of rejection and discipline that can only come from within.
- Roderick MacIver, publisher of Heron Dance
A work of art is the trace of a magnificent struggle. - Robert Henri, The Art Spirit
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Each issue contains dozens of paintings in full color and is printed on recycled
paper. The Heron Dance Nature Art Journal contains
no advertising. Visit
here to subscribe.
25,000 people have signed up for A Pause For Beauty. Each issue contains
a new Roderick MacIver painting and a thought on the gentle arts of life. Visit
here to sign up.
Heron Dance supports the important work of over a hundred wilderness protection
groups and other nonprofits through the donation of prints for fundraisers,
notecards, and the use of our art. Visit
here to learn more.
Heron Dance has survived with minimal foundation support thanks to the support
of our subscribers and the sale of our art and books. Visit
here to visit our Studio Store.
