Posts Tagged ‘non-linear’

Muse Missives: Invitation

// July 6th, 2010 // 8 Comments » // creativity, curiosity, missive

Dear Muse,

You are cordially invited to attend our upcoming creative endeavour.

It will be a simple affair with moderate amounts of paint, paper, string, sweet drinks, balloons, and birdsong provided.

We have taken the liberty of placing a sturdy chair beside the apple tree. We can also organize a faux-Classical Greek fountain if needed. Seriously. We live very close to a Home Depot.

You may be aware that my artistic side is fickle, fizzled, and occasionally crabby. We’re sure you can find a graceful way to be with this slightly hoonish part of me. I will be there to mediate if necessary.

There will be geese wandering the grounds, you may wish to wear boots.

There is no need to bring wine (though feel free), a small bag of bread crusts will suffice.

Breathlessly awaiting your arrival,

Dave.

6 Impossible Things: #6 The Upside Down Umbrella

// April 20th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // creativity, curiosity, metaphor

Creativity is a non-linear process. We start out at Point A and end up at Point C, or Point Q, or any other point that happens to not be called Point B.

This is because, on the way from Point A to Point B , impossible things happen that steer us away from our original endpoint and onto fresher, shinier, more startling destinations.

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with Point B as a destination, just that the creative way to get there probably starts at Point W, or some other ‘non-A’ point.

Anyway the point is: a key feature of the creative life is that seemingly impossible things occur along the way that really kick things along, but only make sense in retrospect.

This is a series of posts presenting 6 impossible analogies for these ‘things’

***
6 Impossible Things: #6 The Upside Down Umbrella
When we are in creating mode we often try to shelter ourselves from the world.

Removing ourselves from the bustle of everyday life can give us the solitude we need to gather ourselves and create. It’s important to make the distinction, though, between creative solitude and hiding.

Huddled beneath our black umbrellas, we can be tricked into thinking that being cloistered from the storms of everyday life will be all we need to make our art.

But the desire to cut ourselves completely from the world can bring its own problems.

We need the outside world. Or, at least need to be in relationship with the outside world. What we create is waiting to be birthed into this world, and to make its way through its storms and withering winds.

It’s easy to make the mistake of believing that a creative genius has an inbuilt small golden thimble which, once located, allows them to pour their creativity out into the world.

While its true that we are inherently creative and creativity flows though us, it’s not merely self generated (not by the small ‘thimble-clutching’ self anyway). Your creativity comes form somewhere both inside and outside of you.

There is no thimble. The truth of your creativity is much greater than that. Your creativity is a communion with the whole world, a world that is waiting to pass through you.

Instead of huddling beneath an umbrella, shielded form the world. sometimes we need to let our umbrella be turned inside out, and upside down. To be transformed from a shield into a vessel ready to catch the offerings of the world. Wild muses wait above in the clouds ready to pour their inspiration down on you.

What do you do to turn your umbrella into a vessel for collecting inspiration?

6 Impossible Things: #3 The Melancholy Piano

// March 26th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // creativity, creativity theory, curiosity, metaphor

Creativity is a non-linear process. We start out at Point A and end up at Point C, or Point Q, or any other point that happens to not be called Point B.

This is because, on the way from Point A to Point B , impossible things happen that steer us away from our original endpoint and onto fresher, shinier, more startling destinations.

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with Point B as a destination, just that the creative way to get there probably starts at Point W, or some other ‘non-A’ point.

Anyway the point is: a key feature of the creative life is that seemingly impossible things occur along the way that really kick things along, but only make sense in retrospect.

This is a series of posts presenting 6 impossible analogies for these ‘things’

***

#3 The Melancholy Piano:

How do you deal with the unlimited options in front of you once you begin creating? How do you navigate doubt? Once you start, you’re pretty much on your own. Books, classes, exercises, can only take you so far.

If you rely on a paint by the numbers approach it’s not really creating, our task is to embrace uncertainty and allow constant flux and change to help draw out our truest responses.

A  piano floats on the ocean’s surface. Cold water laps at the keyboard coaxing melancholy notes that drift above the water, while a woman dances precariously over the top of the piano. A bare foot slides over polished timber, one arm rises above her head, and she stops–mid-pirouette–to listen to the soft notes rising, feel the shifting surface beneath her. Her feet lift, change direction, and step lightly across the surface of the piano.

The woman, stuck on a piano in the middle of the ocean, makes a dance out of staying afloat. She does this by listening intently to the waves lapping on the keys, feeling the shifting water beneath the piano, and moving her body where it needs to go in the moment.

We too, can aim to engage fully with our materials, our surroundings, our state of mind and heart, to allow the creative process to draw out what most needs to be expressed.

Have you had moments where you were able to let go fully, and allow the creative impulse to rise up as you engaged with your artwork?


6 Impossible Things: #1 Rose Ladder

// March 8th, 2010 // 7 Comments » // creativity, creativity theory, illustration

rose ladder

Creativity is a non-linear process. We start out at Point A and end up at Point C, or Point Q, or any other point that happens to not be called Point B.

This is because, on the way from Point A to Point B, impossible things happen that steer us away from our original endpoint and onto fresher, shinier, more startling destinations.

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with Point B as a destination, just that the creative way to get there probably starts at Point W, or some other ‘non-A’ point.

Anyway the point is: a key feature of the creative life is that seemingly impossible things occur along the way that really kick things along, but only make sense in retrospect.

This is a series of posts presenting 6 impossible analogies for these ‘things’

***

#1 The Rose Ladder:

It’s easy to get discouraged when we think that for all our creative efforts we haven’t learned anything, or grown. All the hours spent sketching, writing, practicing scales can seem wasted.

But if we are creating regularly we are growing.

As we grow, the steps we take can be invisible to us. We rise through a succession of small moments of learning. Each as capable of bearing our weight as a single rose floating in mid-air.

But these moments do bear our weight and they do lift us.

As we climb these moments and reach the top of each level of learning, we simultaneously arrive at the bottom of the next level. This can help to solidify the sense that we are not advancing, that we are perpetually stuck in ignorance.

But this is not true.

Each act act we perform along the way adds to our storehouse of knowledge and experience. Walking faithfully along our path we can’t help but evolve creatively, even though we may not always see it.

Can you identify small creative acts that, while seeming inconsequential at the time, helped foster your own creative growth?