Category Archives: creative choices

The Creative Epiphany – The Epiphany in Nelson Mandela

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

thQ0OY6LUZ photo courtesy of heavywordstoliveby.blogspot/2012/7/nelsonmandela

When I began writing this blog over a year ago my intention was to present definitions and examples of epiphany in its many incarnations and to encourage people to be aware, listen to your inner voice and allow the messages of illumination to be heard, especially in regard to the gifts of creativity that you have been given. Your creative gifts are awarded to you free at birth – what you choose to do with them is your choice. That is still my purpose, but I would like to emphasize that I believe every day brings epiphanies, and messages from your inner self, your soul, often repeat themselves in an ever-increasing frequency and urgency. Many times I will write about my experiences, my crazy observations about life, my concerns, etc – all of which are epiphanies to me. In my previous post about the bitter cold here in Colorado, seemingly a casual commentary on the weather, an epiphany is buried. I will allow you to find it for yourself if you care enough to go deep.

Life is rich with layers of discovery, both inside your mind, heart and soul and from the world outside your self. So much to be learned in so short a lifetime. I learn something every single day, whether it be earthshaking or subtle. Today I have re-learned something – I have been re-visited by a piece of wisdom that is so monumental that it might seem obvious, and yet we forget. With the death of Nelson Mandela I have once again been confronted with true greatness and reminded that the authentic heroes of our time or any time in history are people who have cast aside bitterness, hatred and revenge to take the high road, because they know that the most effective way to spread their message is to forgive but keep speaking the words of truth. You can be a highly enlightened person, as was Mandela, and have feelings of bitterness in your heart, and he did admit to having bitterness, but the key is to moderate those feelings, control them and channel them in a positive direction for the greater good. That is no small accomplishment – many people allow the bitterness of the wrongs they have experienced to consume them in a fiery blaze that burns burns burns for as long as they live, destroying everything good in its path. Twenty-seven years in prison could easily do that to a man, but Mandela kept his dignity intact and walked away from his cell a better man determined to seek not revenge but monumental change for both the blacks and the whites in South Africa.

Mandela was a normal human being, first and foremost, capable of both love and lust and violence in defense of what he believed, who found himself in the right place and the right time to do the right thing, and his actions were heroic. He is a hero in all of that word’s definitions to me, and to many other people. The very definition of personal strength. But he had a wicked-good sense of humor, he called a man who was a jerk a jerk, he made friends with his captors during the 27 years he was imprisoned and he invited them to sit in the front row when he was made president. This man was as real as anyone can be.

The epiphany of his reality as a human being has re-hit me strongly today and the knowledge of that is both encouraging and enlightening. I am also, once again, struck with the belief that after death a person of this magnitude does as much or more good work than he was physically able to do in life. Life is confining, finite, and as we grow older we become weak of body – but the spirit soars in death and becomes a larger, more encompassing force than any one frail body can ever be. There is epiphany in all of that.

The Creative Epiphany – Creativity’s Multi-Choices

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

thCAVP09TH Gustav Klimt

I am having one of those moments in time when I cannot decide where to place my emphasis, because both painting and writing are near and dear to me, and very much alike. Creativity is visiting me now – she blew in after my trip to Singapore and has taken up residence in my studio, refusing to leave or even turn down the heat a bit. She likes it hot. She is here because she senses that I am ready for her – but be careful what you wish for because you might get it and she always brings complications disguised as challenges – that euphemistic word that implies the positive but often delivers the negative. She is tricky. She knows how to add intrigue while testing for ingenuity.

I see her as a woman, sitting there staring at me and smiling a Mona Lisa grin, all wild-haired and dressed in hot pinks and orange, eyes flashing. Sorry guys – I respect your freedom to see her any way you like, but to me she is a woman. She is a flaky wench, as I have said before – a woman of many faces, many moods. A heart-breaker, a beauty, a complicated and yet simply divine girl/woman who arrives in a different costume for every day of the week. She can be pouty, stubborn, insistent and bossy but she is also charming, enigmatic and smart. She kills me with her power – I am powerless in her presence. She demands my attention. I drop everything for creativity. Sometimes it is worth it and other times she lets me down….she deserts me….she leaves me in midstream of an idea and does not return for months. And when she does show her face again, enticing me back into her spell, she laughs at me, wondering why I missed her so much and what the fuss of her absence was all about, telling me I need to learn to “wing it” without her constant attention. Easier said than done. She knows how hard it is to wing it.

Sometimes she comes baring gifts so abundant that I am on overload. She offers ideas rapid-fire, challenging me to do them all at once or choose one, any single one, and do it to the absolute best of my ability, at the risk of losing all the others. This is her Sophie’s Choice – choose. I cannot choose one at the exclusion and even death of the others, and therein lies the rub. How come ideas come in clusters and the days are only 24 hours long? Creativity knows how impossible her requests can be. She does not care. She smiles. She waits to see what you will do.

I want to paint; I want to write. The two are similar in their challenges and their triumphs. I ought to be able to do them both, giving each a designated time of day, you would think. But they spill over, they melt out of their allotted hours, they almost become one and the same. I drift from computer onto easel and back to computer again. They each require constant practice, regular attention and loving support. A magnetic composition/plot that pulls in the viewer/reader. A path of light & color/unfolding story for the viewer/reader to follow –  lights and darks, embellishment of certain areas/characters, an exciting punch of extraordinary interest preceded and  surrounded by  some interesting places for your mind to travel while headed in the direction of the focal point/main event. The sensuality of color description, the journey of your mind as you view/read, the tension created for your mind’s eye, the surprise discovery of the message/plot, and the final conclusion – writing or painting? They are about the same thought process for me.

This late fall day, week, month, year, there is a war in my studio to see who wins – the visual artist or the writer. I am a helpless victim of creativity. Happy to have such a problem but wary of the battle.