Christopher Alexander on Holding the Feeling Constant

“… our ability as artists depends very largely on our ability to experience, formulate, and carry such a feeling – first to feel it and witness it, then to carry it forward, remember it, keep it alive within us, and insist on it …

… you hold the feeling constant … you keep it alive in you, this formless feeling which is so vivid, so particular, that you can judge all your form-making as you make the thing, by matching it against that feeling …. emotional substance – something more solid than a feeling, but less formed than a thing – is guiding the process of design and making at every step.”

Christopher Alexander – The Nature of Order – Book 2: The Process of Creating Life