The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.
~ Orson Welles ~
In the tarot, the Major Arcana card 10 is The Wheel of Fortune. This card is usually about the turn of the Wheel, i.e. the change in fortune or life for the better. Cards from a variety of decks show a wheel of some type ridden by the Fool or other symbolic figures.
One of my favorite versions of the Wheel card 
is from the Druid Craft Tarot, illustrated by Will Worthington. In this version, the Celtic goddess Arianrhod is casting the Circle of Life, or as a high priestess does during ritual, drawing the circle for ritual and magic working.
The important thing about this image for me is that she is creating a boundary, a line of limitation. Another way to think of it is as her circle of influence. What magic she works, what she creates will be done within the boundary of that circle.
A boundary, a limitation is not a bad thing. In fact, as Welles says above, for an artist, too much freedom is perilous.
You know what he means if you’ve ever faced a blank screen or canvas or staff lines with no notes. With all the combinations of words, colors or notes available to you, where do you begin?
You begin by creating boundaries or limitations, such as this piece will be nonfiction or landscape or alternative music. More limitations are drawn with each chosen character, place or mood. Then, with those first words or colors or notes, you create a whole set of limitations, because the beginning foreshadows the end.
When I wove throws for a designer client of mine, I had to work with limitations of a defined color palette. My creativity, my creative play, came in working within those limitations to weave something both I and the client liked.
Now that I am finished with manuscript revisions and ready to work on a new novel series, I am feeling acrophobic (fear of high places), a dizzy vulnerability due to the broad landscape of possibilities spread before me.
As I gather bits and pieces of information and ideas, I begin to draw my Circle wherein, as high priestess to the Muse, I will work my story magic.
And within that Circle I find creative freedom.
Because limitations are not limiting. They are freeing. And each creative choice leads to that freedom.
2 Responses
Thank you for this on this day, when I could really “hear” it. I was just in the place of “but where do I begin with all that is before me?” and now I have permission and knowledge to just pull focus (a circle, a boundary) and begin at the beginning. Who knows, maybe eventually the circles expand or join up like pearls in a necklace. But for now it’s good to get started.
I love your posts, always!
Yes, begin at the beginning. The pearl necklace is a good metaphor. Breathing during labor is another one. Get through this “labor pain” by breathing. Don’t think of all the remaining hours of labor yet ahead. 🙂 And draw the circle.