030: On Craving Color

a love letter to writers, artists & other makers

Two seemingly unrelated things happened recently: I placed two poems and I had a coaching session at work.

The coaching session was based on the Kantor Individual Baseline Profile, a test developed to identify “everyday communication tendencies.” It is a whole thing, but the part that is relevant here is that I have a propensity to “move,” that is, I am more likely to initiate an action than I am to follow, oppose, or bystand someone else’s action.

Which (spoiler alert!) helps explain the poem placements. I might have called the act of submitting the poems impulsive or random but for the wise and timely intervention of the Kantor Individual Baseline Profile. Now, I think the submissions come from that tendency to move or act.

I like this idea because I think a bias to act can be helpful to an artist. To just make a piece of art (a poem, a drawing, an essay, a song, a sculpture—whatever it is you make) is a lot of work. To put it out into the world is an even harder thing to do.

Still …