April 5th from The Artist Way Every Day

" We're fed a great deal of romance surrounding the lonely lot of the artist. Over a recent weekend, teaching in San Francisco, I asked for a show of hands from all the people who believed an artist's life would be lonely. In a room filled with two hundred people, nearly two hundred hands went up. Believing this, we can try to live it out- a prospect that makes for a great deal of pain. The truth is that creativity occurs in clusters. Consider Paris in the twenties and the cluster that built up around Gertrude Stein's hospitality. Consider the Bloomsbury Group convening for cocktails and inadvertently launching a movement. It can be argued that successful art is built on successful friendships. It  can certainly be said that friends are what enable an artist to go the distance. "