Inspiration

What do you do when your creative runs into the wall and you blank out? How to get back to the inspiration?

Even the most creative’s can have their vision hit a dry spell and need something to kick-start them again.

Sometimes trying a different medium may help. Maybe some collaboration with another might make a spark.

Here is a suggestion: try something you’ve never done.

Going to a museum for an artist is reviewing the same styles and techniques you learned in school. Going to a gallery is a museum for the living artist. New styles and techniques may inspire new ideas.

The same goes for dancers and musicians. If you continue to go to familiar shows or hear the same music then what will inspire you. Try a different music station or go to a club you’ve never attended or see an off-show with experimental sound and dance and lights.

You may not like it but the change will inspire you.

When you go back to your routine of creation you will view it in a different way.

Give a try and good luck.

Sorry You Cannot Retire

If you are a painter, dancer, musician, writer, or any other form of ‘artist’ I am sorry to tell you that you cannot retire.

For ‘artist’ is a special sort of person. They are constantly viewing colors and sites and hearing colors and motion and participating in the nature of life.

While a coal miner or insurance salesman or computer programmer can work for a company for so many years and retire with a gold watch and a pension, an ‘artist’ can’t.

For the creative mind of an artist can’t be turned on and off. Even though styles may change through the years, the mind continues to imagine. When the body cannot perform the techniques, the ‘artist’ will teach others to view the possibilities.

Creativity has no deadlines.

The illustration is by 16-year-old Shania Coleman.

Recital

One of the most nerve-racking requirements of growing up is to recite. We did it in school when we had to stand in front of the class and repeat a poem or passage that with repetition was to test us. If we were musically talented we were to perform for free showing our achievements and skills.

Don’t we do a recital everyday?

A painter brings their blood, sweat and tears for a viewing with hopes of selling some of the work. A teacher stands before open minds everyday hoping to make a connection that can be regurgitated. A lawyer references previous cases and judgments to sway a jury. A preacher quotes scriptures and verse to persuade a congregation to believe in smoke and mirrors. An advertising salesperson convincing another person to part with their money for a possible reward, just like Vegas or Wall Street.

Some of these attempts are paid for expecting a return on investment. Some hope for donations.

Now established artist or dancers or musicians present shows expecting ticket sales before a performance, but before they became a household name they had to give recitals. Once they drop from fame and lost the attention of the media they are back to giving recitals.

Should a recital be a test? Should it cause such emotional distress?

A recital should be the first presentation and appreciated for the effort. Throw a few coins in the bucket for someone who made the attempt.

When is Art finished?

The ultimate question for every designer, composer, choreographer, writer, poet……the creative process is never done.

A book or play can be rewritten and edited and rewritten again. Dance moves can change on a beat. A poem might be put down and come back to later with a different inspiration. A painting can be painted over.

Artist, like all the rest of us or maybe more so, change what they like. Artist can change media, materials, or even methods of expression. A painter may start with watercolors and move to oils or silkscreen. A writer may start with poetry and move to novels or screen writing. A dancer may start with classical and move into free form. A musician can learn popular rock and roll only to become interested in the roots of blues or classical. A musician may turn to weaving or a weaver may turn to stain glass. It is all a process of growth and experimentation.

So the question is “When is Art finished?”

When does the artist put the pencil down or the writer leave the keyboard? In some media there is a limit to space or materials and when they run out, the art is finished.

Deadlines can finish artwork due to the time has run out. Whether for a show or a commissioned piece, there is a deadline. A publisher has deadlines to guarantee printing and distribution. Concerts have deadlines of when the performance starts and ends.

Yet any artist continues to create. The former ideas and thoughts may lapse into new expressions or may be a rework of previous expressions. Composers will write variations on a theme. Painters will make several paintings of a subject, even changing media and materials. Writers will continue with a theme to make a series of novels with similar characters.

So “When is Art finished?”

It is never finished.

A song is covered and redone and covered again and each has their quality and originality. An idea from a poem can be transformed into a book or a movie with a different point of view. A color or a statement can inspire another’s thoughts to a new presentation.

So borrow my idea and increase the thought and give a variation on a theme to create something new. Creativity is a fluid process and must continue to flow.

Hallucinations

What makes an artist see something no one else’s see? What is in the artistic eye or ear to catch something the proletarian missed? Does an artist see or hear the same reality as the rest of us?

When reality becomes blurred with conscience but which is real?

Does the artist experience apparent perception of something not present?

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a literary work or a painting).

Creativity involves a number of disciplines: psychology, cognitive science, education, philosophy (particularly philosophy of science), technology, theology, sociology, linguistics, business studies, songwriting, and economics, covering the relations between creativity and general intelligence, mental and neurological processes, personality type and creative ability, creativity and mental health; the potential for fostering creativity through education and training, especially as augmented by technology; and the application of creative resources to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning.

“Are you sure that what you saw wasn’t a hallucination?”

A hallucination is a perception in the absence of external stimulus that has qualities of real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. They are distinguishable from these related phenomena: dreaming, which does not involve wakefulness; illusion, which involves distorted or misinterpreted real perception; imagery, which does not mimic real perception and is under voluntary control; and pseudo-hallucination, which does not mimic real perception, but is not under voluntary control. Hallucinations also differ from ‘delusional perceptions’, in which a correctly sensed and interpreted stimulus (i.e., a real perception) is given some additional (and typically absurd) significance.

Hallucinations can occur in any sensory modality—visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, proprioceptive, equilibrioceptive, nociceptive, thermoceptive and chronoceptive.

Hallucination symptoms are illusion, figment of the imagination, vision, apparition, mirage, chimera, fantasy; delirium, phantasmagoria; informal trip, pink elephants, etc.

The other night as the sun was going down and a soft summer breeze was causing the trees to dance, I rocked undisturbed by electronics or noise and watched the show. I’ve lived through the 60’s and 70’s with a bit of a reference to hallucinations. I’ve stayed awake for several days and understand the brain trying to compensate the lack of rest.

So in the silence I stare at the leaves move with the shadows and light. There is a face. That is a landscape. There is a body and another face. Like watching clouds and deciding what the shape represents, there was this slideshow of shapes and activity in front of me for the viewing.

Theme Of The Day

Today woke up to snow. A fluffy pretty snow hanging on the branches but not freezing on the roads. After a couple of cups of coffee I listen to This American Life. It wasn’t their best show but I enjoyed the shows title: “Something Only I Can See”.

I thought about that title for I have written about hearing voices that may not be there and hearing a song after your turn off the radio. I might also see things only I can see? It is called the ‘artistic eye’.

Some folks take the time to observe and others are too busy with their daily lives to miss it. Luckily there are photographers and artist and dancers and writers and musicians who can see it and tell the rest of us about it.

When school budgets get tight, the arts are the first in line to be cut. What would we do without our art? Would we have hit tunes? Would we have museums? Would there be any concerts? Would there be any dances? Would there be any movies? Who would design new fashions? Who would write the books? Who would learn the classics and make new ones?

I personally believe everyone has the ‘creative eye’ or the ‘creative ear’ or the ‘creative thought’ if just take the time to use it.

So what was my theme for the day?

As I watched the snowfall trying to decide if I wanted to venture out in it, I got my theme for the day.

You have to take chances are there is no excitement to life. I strapped on my jeans and walked out into the falling flakes. It is not as cold as I thought but the streets are wet. I took my ride slowly avoiding snow traffic and enjoying the scenery. The same bad traffic was in the store but the game didn’t start for hours and I just coasted. The rest of the day was pretty routine for a winter afternoon as I settled into the norm.

So what was the theme of the day?

The theme was to take the chance. Go into the unknown with eyes open accepting whatever you find. If we bypass these chances we lose the opportunity for an adventure and perhaps a memory.

These memories may turn into a sheet of music or a book or a dance or a painting or just a legacy. For art is a legacy of a time when the ‘creative eye’ was being used.