Creative invention in my work does not feel like willful innovation. It feels more like a form of remembering. An act of psychological archeology not unlike the groping after images and snippets of associative sensation that you engage in when attempting to recall a dream upon awakening. A particularly vivid and moving dream that you know in every cell of your body is crucially important in some way, but that you are unable to retrieve whole. Maybe you jumped out of bed too quickly, or let your mind wander on to the new day's various demands, or just let your consciousness drift with the current of incessant inputs from your physical body. But in any case the line is lost, or at least unraveling fast, leaving you with only the faintest of threads to follow back to the important matter you want so desperately to re-engage. It's like this when I'm completely absorbed in working on a new piece.
I've been making things for so long that I no longer need attend to my hands and eyes. They hold their own ongoing conversation with the materials, by turns laughing, weeping, speaking with carefully measured clarity, or simply crying out with utter abandon, while my subconscious just seeks,seeks,seeks.....struggling to clean the windshield....determined to keep scrubbing and scraping down to the true new old always present. Hoping to elucidate the dream, and settle at last into what Proust so eloquently referred to as "the repose of enlightenment".
15 comments:
Creative invention is like a form of remembering. I love that, and it is, isn't it? It's not like pulling words out of the air, but instead it's like digging down deep and pulling something out that's already there.
Sorry it's taken me so long to come to your blog. I love your photos and also the sculpture field! Very cool work. I will be back.
I'm so glad you came by , Cynthia! And thank you for the kind remarks about my work.
Digging and pulling out seems exactly right. It's strange, and ironic I suppose, how ardently I wanted my art practice to be about ascension and transcendence when I was 20 years old, but how pitifully far short of those goals I would fall...over and over. And how only after exhausting that impulse and learning to just relax and dig DOWN into the ground of my own human experience, have I been able to glimpse out of the corner of my eye the tiniest glint of genuine light through a door ever so slightly ajar...30 years later! (Of course, raising two daughters, both of whom are far brighter than I am, has been the ultimate in humility-boot-camp :))
Thanks for all the stimulating and thoughtful conversation. I appreciate it very much.
"I've been making things for so long that I no longer need attend to my hands and eyes" Oh I know this feeling so well, seems as if the last 20 years of outwardly observing & developing the technical skills involved in painting have served as an apprenticeship. Suddenly something opened up inside and now I barely think at all when I paint, the brush seems to move intuitively, it seems more like breathing and dancing than anything! It is truly a remarkable place to have reached, one that never could have happened without all the previous work, dedication & focus but so completely and utterly liberating!
It is so clear in your paintings, Holly.The hard won self-forgetting that allows the work to just sing, and essentially achieve a life of it's own. Curious how effortlessness is predicated on so much bloody effort.It's such a joy to be following your journey.Your art is inspiring!
Great, great, great description. Really well said. The energy and skill demonstrated in your drawings reveals this truth of your art. Very cool.
Peace,
@vinylart
Hi Daniel, Thank you for those kind and encouraging words! I can feel a little doubtful sometimes about just how much of whats inside is getting out clearly into the work.
I appreciate knowing that you can see something that you think is real and true.
Love the dream metaphor, Walt - very tangible for me as I feel like that every morning. And the correlation to creativity is salient. My artistic attempts frequently feel exactly like willful innovation, and I'd very much like to get to where you are as a creative. I guess that's about practice, huh?
Thanks for commenting, Mark. I really appreciate your input very much. I was trying to remain as concrete and down-to-earth as possible...given the subject matter. Its good to know something tangible comes through to you.
The "inspiration vs. daily practice" issue seems to come up an awful lot in conversations w/ people who are pursuing a creative life. An artificial dialectic, but useful , I think. In guest posts on Cynthia's blog Dani Shapiro and Adam Braver both spoke about the need to "show up" and get to work, whether inspired or not, on any particular day. And about the habits that are conducive to that.
I've been amazed in the past at how often genuine insights arrive at the weirdest times...even when I'm doing the inevitable grunt work and feeling totally uninspired. Jennifer Pierce also meditates on the constellation of issues surrounding the writer's life on her blog. (@blognerd on twitter)I frequently agree w/ her point of view ,and particularly enjoy reading her series "the enchanted 15".
I'm really enjoying the conversation! To be continued...
Beautifully said Walt. Love the last paragraph esp "need attend to my hands and eyes..."
Here's to the repose! Cheers
Cheers Deanne! Nice to see you here...thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts.I'm really looking forward to seeing what you do in Richmond this summer....keep me up to date ~ wp
I want to get to what you and Holly know--"I've been making things for so long that I no longer need attend to my hands and eyes"--although I've just begun, there are times that even when I have to pay attention to my hands and eyes it feels more like meditation. More like inhabiting a moment. Attention, but a meditative attention. My subconscious is also forever seeking...seek, seek, seek. I pretty much let it reign. But I've not mastered the materials yet. I love your description of them laughing, weeping, speaking. I wonder if I'll be able to get there with something less tactile, working with digital images...I think something similar must happen at a certain point. Thanks for this post! I'm always interested in others' creative process.
Hi Melissa,
"Inhabiting a moment...meditative attention"...that sounds to me like we are working towards the same thing, just by different means. I happen to be a very tactile, physical person in my work...and find I can best achieve a meditative and receptive state of mind via a lot of physical activity. But that is hardly an inherent prerequisite. I find your work to be extremely dynamic and emotionally provocative.Its proof positive that employing software and a computer as a tool is just as valid and effective for arriving at a moving, impactful image as any other technique.
If its what opens the door for you, then thats all that matters really.
So glad you stopped by and shared your thoughts!Look forward to seeing what unfolds in your work.
I like this post. Creative invention as compared to remembering a dream. I think the parallels here are quite profound, actually, and have a lot in common.
I am fascinated by the language of dreams, and have worked with several dream therapists. They all say the same thing: have a pen and paper by your bed, and as much as possible, when waking up from a dream, try not to move. Don't turn on the light. Just reach for your pen and paper and start writing in the dark. Because as soon as you start to move you lose some of it. You have access to that "crack between the worlds", a time when the free flow of information, between the dream dimension and the physical dimension, is at its peak. Important to just allow it to come, without grasping. The more you grasp or "try" to remember, the more that it fades.
And it seems to me that the creative process isn't much different.
Thanks, Walt, for an interesting post, and for tweeting about my blog on Twitter. I blog about issues related to aging -- learning to find the strength, wisdom and fruition of character that comes with it.
Jesse (SeptemberMay on Twitter)
Blog: http://septembermay.blogspot.com/
I see that we are both in pursuit of the same threads though through different media. I am glad to have found your site through Twitter and that you have called me friend there. I am "rgl" and my blog site is "Through a Jungian Lens" a place for photography and psychological journeying. (http://retiredeagle.wordpress.com/
You'd be interested in Arthur Koestler's masterwork: The Act of Creation. The book is hard to find, but well worth tracking down.
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