For Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven or Part Eight...knock yourself out. :-) Full links are coming soon.
Sterling W. Sill was a businessman, my seventh cousin once removed, who spoke often of success principles, and even wrote success books himself - one of my favorite was "How to Personally Profit from the Laws of Success". There were over 25 more.
His talk in the April 1971 Conference, entitled "Great Experiences", talks about the many kinds of experiences we can have in mortality. Most of his quotes weren't direct quotes, but paraphrases. Time to start searching!
The First Quote
"Recently a group of bishops were asked for a report on their work. They were told not to discuss their problems, but to describe what they did better than anyone else.
This philosophy of excellence was demonstrated by the artist Whistler, who once painted a tiny picture of a spray of roses.
The artistry involved was magnificent. Never before, it seemed, had the art of man been able to execute quite so deftly a reproduction of the art of nature. The picture was the envy of the artists who saw it, the despair of the collectors who yearned to buy it for their collections, but Whistler refused steadfastly to sell it.
“For,” said he, “whenever I feel that my hand has lost its cunning, whenever I doubt my ability, I look at the little picture of the spray of roses and say to myself, ‘Whistler, you painted that. Your hand drew it. Your imagination conceived the colors. Your skill put the roses on the canvas.’ Then,” he said, “I know that what I have done I can do again.”
Then he gave us a great philosophy of success. He said, “Hang on the walls of your mind the memory of your successes. Take counsel of your strength, not your weakness. Think of the good jobs you have done. Think of the times when you rose above your average level of performance and carried out an idea or a dream or a desire for which you had deeply longed. Hang these pictures on the walls of your mind and look at them as you travel the roadway of life.”"
A Great Thought - What's My Best Work?
Learning about Whistler brought my thoughts around to my own artistic endeavors. No Whistler here - I wasn't ever what anyone would call a great artist. But I did love to draw once. As a young child, I would often draw the beautiful Utah mountains outside the windows of my home.
I became a writer instead - wrote three novels I love very much, and working on the odd short story here and there now.
My children became writers too, in their own ways, but they also drew, like their great-grandmother did. My youngest girl drew for ten years and created some terrific fanciful drawings. She drew the covers of my books. My oldest girl practiced photography all the way through college and then took up drawing herself.
Lately I've been considering their achievements and wondering what I could do, maybe? I need pictures for my new blog, right? Why couldn't I draw them?
Anyway, I couldn't find the mythical spray of roses drawn by Whistler, definitively, and I needed a picture for the thumbnail, so for your enjoyment, I've created my own spray of roses - behold!
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| Well...hmmm... |
Whistler's version no doubt trumps mine, but I don't know - I sort of like my spray of roses...or is it an accidental screaming bride of Frankenstein made out of roses?
I drew that. :-)
I'm enjoying my ignorance of everything I don't know about drawing at the moment - the Dunning-Kruger effect is strong with this one, for sure.
Eventually I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong and do better, but my artist daughter liked it. She said it looked very kinetic...whatever that means. Hopefully that's a good thing.
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