Art, some thoughts…
My earlier comment about “most books being like skeletons in a graveyard…” is related to my experiences as an artist.
To me, the most important aspect of creating art, is the experience that I encounter as I confront the creative process.
Years ago, I discovered that there were several ways that my mind could work. At the “lowest” level, the ideas that come out are simply an automatic regurgitation of preconceptions. In this way, I am not really seeing anything about the particular project itself or anything new, but just working from memory of things I’ve seen or heard before with no sense of what is appropriate at this moment.
It seemed to me that a good word to describe this level of interaction was: automatic. I also saw that unfortunately, most “artistic” endeavors happen at this level.
I thought: “If I want to design a chair for example, where do I usually begin? Where do most of us begin something like this? With what we already know. I have seen hundreds of chairs in all sizes, shapes, designs etc., so presto, into my mind comes a favorite and off I go with my design!
A step or more up from this is what seemed to be denoted by the word: sensitive. Suddenly, my mind would “see” the relationships that were specific to this particular thing and I was able to use my sensitivity to arrange them in a way that made it more itself in a way. It was as if I woke up. I can see that what I was doing before was only working from something very automatic.
So I might suddenly begin to think about the question: What is this thing, a chair? What need is it trying to fulfill? How can I design something that best fills that need, even if it looks nothing like the “chair” in my mind, and I start to solve the problem of “a chair” for and of itself, not related to the hundreds of preconceived notions of a chair that are in my “automatic” mind. This can not only lead to some very interesting and creative outcomes, but is also an interesting exercise to be tried for itself.
Most of the time, I find it very difficult to make this mental leap and get below the surface. Even when I am thinking about it and trying to do it, I am just only “thinking” about it, not “doing” it. Even when I see this, other preconceived thoughts come up to take their place.
Something usually has to happen to jolt me into seeing it in a different way. I think that many good artists are able to work at this level with out the struggle, it just seems to come about naturally.
For me, the process of challenging myself is far more important than the final result of the creative process, no matter how great the outcome. That is why the result, the finished design or piece of “art” I consider really only incidental. It is only what remains after the spark of creativity. It is the just the skeleton left over.
On some rare occasion, another way of “seeing” appears by itself and there is something so new that it would be as if it did not come from my mind at all. This is what I thought to call true creativity.
Happy Holidays to all.
Alan
