Thoughts about creativity
Creativity requires commitment. The continual renewing of perspectives and the ability to consider a multitude of possibilities are essential fundamentals for the individual who seeks to express a personal vision that strives to be enduring and vital. Creativity breaks the cycle of the mundane and sets the heart and mind free.
Some artists work in series with repetitive forms and ideas and yet continue to imbue their work with an originality and liveliness similar to the first unfettered pieces they created. Others certainly do not. What is the basis of the difference? How long can an idea can be teased out or replicated and still be considered creative? Can the thing that was once thought to exemplify creativity eventually cease to be creative over time? Does creativity have an expiration date? Creativity is about the present–the now–rather than the past or future, yet it is constantly evolving.
Artists who are flexible and inquisitive in their thinking and processes will make works of art that have an electric quality to them. The work doesn’t necessarily need to be bold, loud or dramatic. It simply needs to encourage the viewer to feel and think; it will quicken the pulse. Truly creative work is authentic. Emotion and thought are generated in its presence.
It’s understood that cultivating the capacity to live with ambiguity and unpredictability helps to foster creativity, but the brain often defaults to recognized and comfortable patterns in a desire to maintain the status quo. “When we feel like we don’t have command of our own fate, our brains often invent patterns that offer a sense of self-control.”(1)
For both artists and non-artists alike it’s important to recognize the challenge that creativity poses to conventional thinking. How tolerant and flexible are you willing to be in order to ignite and flame your creativity?
Hinterthuer, Adam. “Brain Seeks Patterns Where None Exist.” Scientific American, October 3, 2008. January 18, 2016. http://tinyurl.com/omcpmfh