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Art's Reflection
Michael Littig
January 17, 2024
Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.
Happy Wednesday!
Here’s a short story, a creative tool, and a piece of art to inspire you this week.
A SHORT STORY
 Bayan-Olgii, Western Mongolia |  Petroglyphs |
When I lived in Mongolia in 2008, I spent two weeks researching the performance traditions of Kazakh-Mongols in the remote area of Western Mongolia.
During my time there, deep in the Altai mountains, I got to meet Badrajopf— a local archaeologist who knew the location of some of the oldest petroglyphs in northern Asia, some dating back to as early as 11,000 BCE.
After a full day drive to a remote area off-road, we came upon thousands of petroglyphs spread across a small area of the mountain. Badrajopf toured us around and shared that his dream was for this place to become a UNESCO site, which it did eight years later!
The earliest images we saw reflected a time (11,000 - 6,000 BC) when the area was partly forested, and the valley provided a habitat for hunters of large game. Later images that Badrajopf shared showed the transition to herding as the dominant way of life.
The reason I share this now is that I have been contemplating the necessity of art and why Homo sapiens turned to reflecting their way of life through artistic paintings. In some circles, this is considered the reason Homo sapiens evolved, establishing their own belief systems.
For myself, I can certainly say that in my darkest times, I have always turned to art to process life. Whether it’s a poem or a particular image, I often found a moment of solace in the reminder that I am not alone.
And so, I ask myself, what reflection do I create in my own work? So, thousands of years from now, if my work was discovered, what would it say about what I found beautiful at the time I was living?
And, most importantly, who would they be for?
What piece of art reflects your life the most? What does it say about you?
A CREATIVE TOOL
As I mentioned in my previous emails, I thought it might be helpful in the new year to use this section as a space of creative accountability for myself and others to share their work and creative tools they are using in their own practice.
My dear friend from college, Joseph Medeiros has been working on a multi-year project with the Odyssey. “This week, I’ve been studying the sounds of Mycenaean Greek and going through the text of Homer to create a Pylian dialect for Nestor in book 3 of the Odyssey. The language of Homer is made up of many linguistic layers from different times and places. I’m working to find ways of rendering this fact in performance in as many ways as possible.”
I’m currently leading a course on AI with over 800 creatives around the world, so I’m asking myself how can I treat AI as a collaborator and as a source of disruption? One of my experiments is to expand upon my Welcome Home piece by training AI on my ancestral photos and homes to co-create alongside the AI to see if it can help me remember the forms of home.
Want to share some of your own creative practice? Respond to this email.
Want to learn even more creative tools? Check out the weekly newsletter I write at HUG called Creator Royalties.
A PIECE OF ART
Moisés / Moses by Luis Alberto de Cuenca
Translated by Gustavo Pérez Firmat
Give me your hand. We have to cross
the river and my strength fails me.
Hold me as if I were a abandoned package
in a wicker basket, a lump that moves
and cries in the twilight. Cross the river
with me. Even if this time the waters
don't part before us. Even if this time God
doesn't come to our aid and a flurry of arrows
riddles our backs. Even if there is no river.
Know of anyone who might benefit from these helpful creative reminders? Send them this link.
Grateful,
Michael
