I stopped when I saw it.
It was a blue poster with infinitive verbs on it prominently displayed in the McColl Center’s Innovation Institute classroom where I was taking a two day creative plunge. So intrigued, I Googled Richard Serra’s Verb List and learned that Serra, a prolific large-scale steel sculptor, had begun writing a list of verbs that could inspire his work in any medium in 1967. The handwritten list is not part of the Museum of Modern Art’s collection and features two sheets of paper where the artist listed 84 infinitive verbs- to fire, to flood, to smear, to rotate, to swirl- and 24 possible contexts- of gravity, of nature, of entropy- in columns of his script. Serra described the list as a series of “actions to relate to oneself, material, place, and process,” and used it as a guide to inspire action in his future work.
A series of actions to relate to oneself, material, place, and process.
Ever since I saw Serra’s list, I’ve been keeping my own verb lists. Today, I want to share with you a Self-Acceptance Verb List—a series of actions to embrace in our relationships with ourselves and on our ongoing journeys towards wholeness. I hope you’ll use this image as a gentle reminder of the actions you can always come back to in your self-acceptance process.
Want to have your own copy of the self-acceptance verb list? Download here.
