Category Archives: creativity

All Your Perfect Imperfections

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

trunkbumps  

Tree photo from Muir Woods – John Legend photo courtesy of http://www.2flashgames.com

John Legend, the apparently legendary singer who had escaped my radar until recently, has a new hit song that offers a  brilliant message in its lyrics. I find myself playing it over and over again in my mind… The title of the song is “All of Me”, and I enjoy it because it is a gorgeous ballad, a love song, but one that tells it like it really is. But I also like it because it seems to apply so well to us creative types….and we are a weird and rowdy bunch, are we not? We have a love-hate relationship with our gifts of creativity.  Our gifts are the good news but sometimes the bad news too, since they constantly scream at us for attention and nurturing. They demand so much of us. And we love what we do but we are sometimes riddled with doubt. We wonder. We question. We get exhausted with our own damn selves. You all know who you are, and so read on……this song is for you:

Partial Lyrics from the John legend Song titled “ALL OF ME”

What would I do without your smart mouth?

Drawin’ me in and you kickin’ me out

You got my head spinnin’

No kiddin’

I can’t pin you down.

 

What’s going on in that beautiful mind?

I’m on your magical mystery ride

And I’m so dizzy

Don’t know what hit me

But I’ll be alright.

 

My head’s underwater but I’m breathin’ fine

You’re crazy and I’m out of my mind

Cuz all of me loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections…

 

That’s not all of the song.

The song goes on and on. The part about all your perfect imperfections is my favorite – because we all are that. We all have these wild-ass quirks and glaring flashing neon irregularities that can be both charming and infuriating, depending upon the day and the situation. You just have to keep them all in balance so you don’t cut off your ear or jump off a bridge. Those kinds of artists are in fact, LEGENDARY. You see documentaries about them which isn’t at all a bad thing, actually. But most of us do manage to keep our imperfections and issues in a workable balance while occasionally, yes indeedy, well of course, hell yes, using them for leverage, individuality and recognition . They are almost like tools – they can be milked.

Oh and how many of you writers and artists feel as if your head is underwater on various occasions but you somehow manage to breathe just fine – that happens to me when I paint. I am cut off from the real world in some kind of liquid otherworldly place where there is no space or time or air and yet I am somehow breathing pure oxygen. Getting high on it.

Getting back to the love song aspect, lucky be you if you find a person that loves all of yours – your perfect imperfections. Your eccentricities.  They won’t always love yours, every single minute all the time, but even if they just love yours more of the time than they do not love them, you are a winner. Of course they need to remember that they have their own set of wacky things too, some far more wacky than the ones you have, so it needs to be reciprocal. But Holy Cow don’t start debating which of you has more…..there’s no winning that game.

But then as I often say, you probably knew all that.

And PS – this is my 120th blog post and many thanks to all of you for following and occasionally stopping by!

 

The Zone and the Creativity Chakra

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

                                                 

Photo #1 courtesy of Julie Bleadow-Wilson on Pinterest.com,  Photo #2 courtesy of wonderhealing.net

Highly creative people are especially in tune and aware of the mind-body connection – we live and breathe so that we can create. What is happening to us is deeply and irreversibly connected to what we create. As artists we are expected to be a product of all of our experiences both internal and external. This is so obvious that it is often overlooked in the bigger picture of creativity. We are all products of our environment, but some more so than others.

Most likely you have all known people who are super sensitive – to sunsets, to sadness, to death, to birth, to chocolate chip cookies and everything in between ….they feel more deeply. They absorb the world around them, inhaling it deeply and storing it in their limitless mind-body experience storehouse where even the smallest event or the tiniest living being is worthy of remembrance and honor.  This is the art Buddha’s home, in my opinion; the Buddha whom I lovingly, reverently and affectionately reference frequently.  At the other extreme are people we have actually known and even perhaps loved (once) who are like the highest quality Teflon – everything seems to bead up and roll right off. They have the depth of a birdbath – they skim the surface of life. How they manage that is beyond my understanding, despite many years of trying. It is a form of denial perhaps, or maybe just fear in its simplest form.

Most of us live and thrive in the middle ground of those two extremes, happy to be there, but even then occasionally surprised at ourselves when we slip off the dead-center bubble position over some thing or another that takes us off guard with its power to shake us to the core. That is so human. Usually however, we are conscious and aware, balanced, normally functioning and just fine, thank you very much.

If you are an artist, writer, creator of any variety reading this, I am wondering where you place yourself? Are you super-aware or medium or just not all that aware of your own mind-body connection?

The six major types of consciousness are:

Auditory – Awareness of sounds

Gustatory – Awareness of tastes

Olfactory – Awareness of smells

Tactile – Awareness of touch and bodily sensations

Visual – Awareness of what we see as color, shapes, etc

These five types of awareness depend upon the totality of your mind and body  – your general health. If all of your senses are up and running then you have a lot of incoming data to work with – all systems are go – you are receiving information twenty-four hours a day – filtering in what to keep and discarding what you do not need. It’s a full time job. You have to be an air traffic controller on steroids. It is exhausting, especially if you are an artist – so many ideas, sights, smells, conversations, feelings and tastes. It all factors into your daily experience. But if one or more of these senses is a little OFF or under the weather, or totally gone in a major permanent way, that requires an enormous mind-body compensation.

However! There is also a sixth sense – an awareness that depends upon none of the above  – it is a state of mental consciousness  – and it is aware of all the other senses but not necessarily dependent upon them. It is also more powerful than the sum of all the others, but less well known. Some people do not acknowledge it – others swear by it and use it daily. It is a sort of super-human tuning in, or special consciousness, to everything your mind-body connection has to offer you for a rarified, limited space of time. You will recognize it when it arrives, and you will most certainly know when it has left. It comes and goes, and lucky be you if it visits you often, as Yoda might say.

If you are an artist, a writer, an athlete or any kind of creative creature and you have experienced the astonishing level of sensory awareness known as the zone, then you know that is where miraculous things can happen. Master paintings are done, the best music is written, literary classics are penned and athletic records are made and  broken – almost effortlessly. Many books have been written about this phenomenon – most notably the national bestseller titled FLOW, The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

The Chakras are zones of your body which are the seat of all the mind-body connections. That is an entirely fascinating and astonishing subject, worthy of many other blogs. But let me just say that the seat of creativity lies in the second Chakra – the area of your body that is the most sensual, the most sexual, and the headquarters of sensuality itself. Those of you who have experienced being in the zone, doing your best and most brilliant work, for hours on end almost at the exclusion of the outside world might agree with me that it is an extremely sensual and pleasurable place to be – akin to making love. In my blog archives is a post of many months ago which I titled “The Love of Making Art is Like the Art of Making Love”.

Are you, or have you ever been “in the zone” ? My wish for you is that you find that place and visit it often.

 

 

The Creative Epiphany – The One-Year Painting Challenge, Official Blog #1

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

dasl   room   floor

Denver Art Student’s League – the building, a classroom, the floor – March 17th, 2014    

In review – My esteemed instructor for Advanced Contemporary Painting, Homare Ikeda, has offered me a challenge – to work on a painting for a solid year. Certainly not at the exclusion of other work but parallel with all my other works. The canvas, we have decided, need not be larger than 30×40″ and could in fact be a bit smaller. The task, which of course I accepted, is more about the 365-day journey than the destination – more about having patience and resilience than the amount of time required – more about trusting yourself with the addition of each and every gesture than in asking for constant direction from the instructor. For a person like me who usually works quite fast, it is an exercise in pacing and meditation over the work being done.

**For the first two (unofficial) posts introducing this project, see my archives titled “Art Imitates Life, as they say…” published 3/13/2014 and “Back To The Classroom, Seeing Things Again for the First Time” published 3/11/2014

March 18th, 2014

Today I have begun. I have finally made my decision about the canvas size based upon Homare’s recommendation not to choose an odd-ball size (I was considering a tall narrow size of 20×60″) that would only add unnecessary frustration to this challenge. So the chosen size is 24×30″

It’s almost a blizzard now, where I am, in my second floor home studio south of the Denver metro area, but it won’t last long. It’s SPRING! Great day to paint. The north light in this room is wonderful, especially with lots of snow flying around outside.

I begin by painting the entire canvas with my favorite base color – unbleached titanium. It’s warm, it’s neutral, and it’s friendly with the color palette I usually hang with. I slap it on with a large palette knife because that also adds subtle texture, and I am all about texture, color and pattern.

palletteknife   closeup

blog1   texture

Now it has to dry before I can do anything else to it. That doesn’t take long, especially in Colorado’s altitude and low humidity, but you can also use a hair dryer if you are impatient, which I am supposed to NOT BE in this challenge. I am already getting excited to do more. Calm down. I need to watch it a lot, getting to know it. Calm down. Looking for inspiration. I might be hit with a flash of brilliance….something I want to do right away! Color! But I might not touch it again for several days…calm down.

Stay tuned……

The Creative Epiphany – The Life-Support of Art

fresco2

Breathe deeply and open your senses to the wonders around you. Be alive!  Live in the now. You are a human being, able to lift yourself up through the joy of imagery. You are an emotional sponge – soak up what you need. Art is to be used – it is a tool for information and life enhancement, available at every turn.

Go to it when you need it. The beating art is your life support.

“The saving of lives, for an artist, is surely a daily act. Artists are resuscitators of dreams, rescuers of the abandoned, lodgers of the unwanted, and keepers of faith. In our lifesaving, we are saved. In polishing the souls of others, the artist polishes her own with her resurrections. She can’t help herself – giving life is the ultimate creative act. ‘As soon as there is life, there is danger,’ said Ralph Waldo Emerson. ‘I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.’ ” 

Written by Sara, excerpted from the March 4th, 2014 Letter of Robert Genn, which I highly recommend for all of you who enjoy being enlightened about the creative life.

Here’s the link: http://clicks.robertgenn.com/save-a-life.php

To be subscribed to the Twice-Weekly Robert Genn Letter, you can find out about it by going to www.painterskeys.com

From that website – Informed and successful artists and other creative folk from more than 115 countries visit this website for information, inspiration, artist advice, friendship and connectivity. Most have signed up to the Twice-Weekly Letters, which is FREE and we strongly encourage you to also subscribe to get the most benefit from this community. It has also been our goal to make this website an online resource of information for artists and a place to share with others what you are doing, such as through the Art Show Calendar, Art Workshop Calendar and Premium Art Listings. One of the most popular pages is the Art Quotes page, and we also share other things like a listing of Art Retreats available to artists, books, videos, and more.

I had to share this brilliant quote from Sara – her quote says so beautifully what is in the heart of every artist. Many people see us creative types as passive, introverted, perhaps even wimp-ish, but we are indeed the gutsy ones who smear our souls across canvas, following that brave effort by asking  for comments from perfect strangers. With our images we offer solace and comfort to the suffering, joy to the truly alive, hope to those who seek it and reassurance that life must go on. People who appreciate the artistic efforts of centuries discover all that and more.

People are moved by the sensuality of color, the fascination of texture and the thrill of a striking composition. That is wonderful. But art is not always pretty, and when it is not gorgeous to look at in the classical sense, you can be sure that especially then, when the image is not necessarily beautiful, it is still thought-provoking and it has a profound message to deliver. My wish is that people would follow that less-traveled visual path more often and care enough to discover the intent of the artist, the bravery required to make such a statement and the value therein. Dipping the pen of that artist and the viewer into the blackest, deepest well, as Ralph Waldo Emerson alludes to in the above quote within Sara’s quote, in other words. Art is so very all-inclusive – there is something for absolutely every one of us whatever mood we are in at the time. There is a time and a place for it all. When you need some life-support you will find it. Take a day trip to your local museum, visit an art class, stop into a gallery, go online to websites like ARTSPAN.com or just visit BING or GOOGLE and ask for images of your choice. You have the world of art at your fingertips, for your viewing pleasure and sustenance – an easy way to take you right out of yourself and into another world.

The Creative Epiphany – Refrigerator Wisdom in the USA

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

mag0   jocrow   bike

I love to entertain, and when I do my guests spend time in the kitchen reading my frig art. I do believe this is an American art form too long overlooked – each and every frig magnet selection is unique and timely and informative…..it  reveals the philosophy of the household and the mood of the decade. It is a barometer of the times, so to speak, unless your magnets and clippings are so old that they should be replaced. You do want your frig art to be timely, for Pete’s sake. It is  a passive-aggressive message board, saying everything you would not or could not say out loud, in a sort of  “ok read it at your own risk” kind of way….”I don’t know how it got up there but….” and then “well of course it’s my house but sometimes other people just…”

And people do give me magnets all the time, and purposely walk in the door, then into the kitchen and boldly post something on my frig. They are too chicken to put it on their own damn frig.  So I am an enabler. I took down some of the more suggestive, but hilarious ones for the noble cause of this blog post.

Are you a neat display freak or do you slap stuff up there all willy-nilly? I am both, depending on the day and what kind of hurry I am in. Sometimes I take it all down and edit it in an attempt to make sense of it all. I am an eclectic frig displayer – I like a frisky assortment of messages.

What’s on your frig?  Are you leaning toward political statements or the literary, wisdom themes or the sexy themes or what?

mag2   mag4mag3

Of course Jack Kerouac is always great – and Rumi has certainly stood the test of time. You cannot find a more fascinating author of life’s lessons than Rumi. I wish I could put 100 of his quotes on my frig.

My current favorite by far is the menacing bird, saying “I would sell you to Satan for one corn chip.” Such a great message about life – watch out for those who can be cheaply bought, and be careful of the simple offer disguised as a good deal. You never know who you are dealing with, or who he represents…..are you the corn chip or the devil? All of the bird quotes on my frig are from  www.mincingmockingbirds.com – a website that is crazy and kinda sick – love it. The Satan bird is positioned right in the middle of a group of timeless Matisse images which makes no sense but who cares.

Another one that shows up in the group photo – about the tomato – is a great hit at my house, indicative of a person we all know who shall go nameless and had a legendary tendency to tell everyone what to do about every single teeny little detail of life. My sister gave me the magnet and assertively slapped in on the frig when she came to visit one time…..a not so subtle suggestion that did not actually go over very well but made most of us feel better that we had done something to express our disapproval.

majic   bliss   acid

I think an international art exhibit of frig art is long overdue, and so let’s think about doing that…wouldn’t we all know each other better if we could just walk into kitchens around the world and read everyone’s frig art?

The Creative Epiphany – Sitting Around at Sunset on the Big Island

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

sunset1 sunset3

blogsunset blogyes

A selection of sunsets for your viewing pleasure, Kona HI

So during my recent stay on the Big Island, drinking sunset wine on the western deck at 1000 ft elevation, with the Specific Ocean spread out before us like glass, and well into the prime time viewing portion of a dazzling, colorful display in shades of pewter, silver, steel blue and iridescent gold underneath the warm colors of sister sun…we are feeling no pain and talking about birds.

Birds are plentiful there – squawking and screeching and calling to eachother for answers to the big bird questions. It begins about 4:30 or 5 am and continues with different groups and choruses all day long until dusk. Since lots of chickens roam the island in the epitome of the much sought after free-range chicken life, you are liable to have roosters nearby who of course signal the dawn in big COCKA DOODLE DAMN DOOOOO (I am awake now and so are you) announcements every single morning – the good news is the free-range part because eventually they move on to greener pastures and bigger bugs to eat.

And there are crows. Remember that all these birds first breezed into the island at some point in a very ancient time, either purposely or riding involuntarily on the prevailing winds or perhaps a storm that they could not get out of, like being in a giant washing machine headed somewhere. I am fascinated – glued – to James Michener’s thick, almost 1000 page classic book “Hawaii”. I got it when I came back to the mainland and can’t put it down. Well sometimes I have to put it down because it weighs too much to carry around all day. At the time of the Roman Empire and Christ the islands were still being formed by volcanic activity and did not yet exist as a habitable location….they were forming, becoming a potential paradise, but still without edible food and clear water. The Big Island of Hawaii and her smaller sisters had not even come close to being discovered or habituated by a human person. Think about that, and think about the first people arriving and how amazed they were….but I digress.

Birds are usually found in groups which are not always called flocks, and while sitting on the deck we googled bird info and the names of various bird groups. Here is what we found, and we could not stop reading, while opening another bottle of wine.

A bunch of Crows is actually called a MURDER. Then we also have : Teams of Ducks. A Mob of Emus. An Ostentation of Peacocks! A Pitying of Turtledoves…. A Cast of Hawks. A Wedge of Geese (while they are flying). A Siege of Cranes. A Herd od Swans. A Charm of Hummingbirds. A Company  of Parrots. A Conspiracy of Ravens. An Exaltation of Larks. A Parliament of Owls. A Tiding of Magpies. A Scold of Jays.

Well it got funnier and funnier. You had to be there ( we wish for you that you were…). We also made up some of our own – well of course we did. It was sunset in paradise and we had the time.

There are many more to be found if you follow this link to the Palomar Audubon Society page: http://palomaraudubon.org/collective.html

Open a bottle of wine and watch the sunset wherever you are.

thCA66G1Y5

The Creative Epiphany – The Schizophrenic Artist With Her Hair on Fire

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

?????????? Mixed media Collage titled “Broken Road” by Jo Ann Brown-Scott, copyright 2014

Remember a couple weeks ago I was talking about the creative person who changes his/her style and cannot please everyone in the process? I said it is no one’s business but your own how you paint, what you paint, and what direction your unique evolutionary process takes you. OK that is a given. But some of us do it a little differently, so it’s no wonder the innocent viewer is confused. This “being a creative artist”, meaning any kind of creative person at all, is multi-faceted, and it not only goes deep, it goes very wide, and then it goes deeper again. If you were fracking for the good stuff, the core, the gem of being an artist, you’d have to go in from the side as well as going deep. Very seldom do you get a gusher, and rarely when you do, it is not just about the art. There is just so much else down there….

So – your evolution within your creativity is your journey – your adventure – and no one else will ever truly grasp your struggle with it. Some people follow a straight path, sensible and logical, one style morphing slowly into another, evolving sanely; others do not. They take the broken road. Being an artist, writer, musician (such as the ones who are in the symphony orchestra but play rock & roll for fun), of many styles, all running consecutively throughout your career is insanely different and only once in a great while at some special intersection does it feel the same as those who go in the straight line. You do move forward, but in a more exhaustive frenetic pace. I guess you could put it this way – you are evolving as an artist just fine, thank you very much, but in so many arenas that you jump from one arena to the other as they all race along neck to neck in a parallel line, often changing lanes in the same day, because you could not possibly live long enough to wait until one style runs its course before you start on another. You are too impatient for that! You need to be trying out lots of ideas at once to see which one sticks and becomes the money -maker or the emotional shaker. You are a three-ring circus, a one-man band, or in the extreme a psycho artist with your hair on fire. I actually think many fine artists of the painting variety do this, and they are on fire in a good way. If you can manage the chaos it works to your advantage since one style or avenue of creativity feeds on the other, and is enhanced by the proximity of all the other creative outlets you are pursuing. So you multi-task and you get more done than if you did not. That is the fun part.

Oh but wait…painting the canvas is only one component of the puzzle. There is still much to be done after you have dripped blood onto a canvas and bled out, giving it all you’ve got. The rest is all done behind the scenes in the third world sweat shop studio where YOU are the one working 24/7 with no days off. After the styles and the choices and the evolution and the actual work all fall into place, then the real work begins. Unless you have hit it so big that you can pay $$$ to have the drudgery contracted out to about a half-dozen other worker-bees, you must do it yourself in your “off hours” from painting.

For instance, if you are an artist who is also a talented writer, those gifts combined feed the way you execute and explain your art, both verbally and in print. You will need to write a distinctive Bio, an Artist’s Statement, a resume, as well as keeping a detailed inventory of your work. If you are also a photographer, you can learn to correctly photograph your own art, saving hundreds of dollars and a boatload of time. If you are a computer wiz you can edit your photos and arrange them with text in your portfolio, after sizing them, cropping them, making color corrections and adjusting them for accurate brightness and contrast. If your work requires framing, well then frame it yourself or allow an enormous amount of money to have a professional do it – and allow plenty of time for that to happen. Weeks and weeks sometimes. If you understand the basics of sales and distribution, then you have a head start toward marketing your own art, or supervising the sales rep you pay $$$ to research galleries and sort through possible “good fit” retail and wholesale representation in your behalf. If you have an eye for display, you can offer an educated suggestion for how your work should be shown in a gallery situation where it must flow seamlessly from image to image. And last but not least, if you are a people person and you can bring a congenial first impression and a quality conversation under pressure, remembering names and faces and leaving a lasting impression, well then you have what it takes to be a success. Tired yet?

But wait again! How can you do all that and still have time to paint in several different styles all racing along at once? Therein lies the challenge. Good luck with that. But ask yourself, “Is there anything else I would rather be doing?”

If your answer is YES, then move on, and do it well.

The Creative Epiphany – January 6th, The Day of Epiphany

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

photo 5 (3) photo 4 (3) mantwo manone

Photos courtesy of my recent trip to Singapore and Bangkok, October 2013

This blog was originally written as a broader continuation of my second book, The Creative Epiphany – Gifted Minds, Grand Realizations available on Amazon.com, by Jo Ann Brown-Scott. Since the book was published in 2008 we have had what I am going to say is great success for a first time author and a book that was published through Amazon’s self-publishing division. As I frequently say, the GIFT OF CREATIVITY is AWARDED FREE AT BIRTH –  everyone gets some. Your lifelong challenge is to accept it, locate its best vehicle and venue, then define how you can most effectively use it for yourself and the greater good. Remember that part about “the greater good”  because we do not include clever, creative criminals in the greater good category.

After you read my Introduction, in which you will come to know the lovely, personified creativity as I see her and defines just what a creative epiphany is, then offers suggestions for how you might be able to tap into a life-changing epiphany for yourself as well, you will see that the book is a compilation of personal experiences from 19 creative people including myself, who all had life-changing epiphanies involving their personal gifts of creativity. I selected people for the book based upon recommendations from friends, my own circle of eccentric acquaintances, family members and experts I knew. I interviewed the prospects by phone and in person, the theory being that if that person had an amazing life-altering story and could tell it beautifully in a normal conversation, holding my attention for hours, then that person could write it down and with my editing then release it for the world to read, thus changing lives. I was right – the stories are all told in a conversational style that I was careful to edit without stomping out the character and personality of the teller thus altering the book into a collection of boring, homogenized junk. It is not a perfect, polished example of literature – it is a real, down and dirty book from people living out in the trenches of a creative life, and that is not an easy life. They tell it like it is.

I have heard from many “strangers” who read the book, enjoyed it and gained something from it, including a psychologist who says he uses it as therapy, a highly devout woman doing work in a Buddhist monastery, a person walking down the streets of London who happened to see that the person coming toward her was also carrying a copy of this book. With Amazon you reach the world – with blogs you reach the world. For me, sitting here at my computer or painting in my studio, that is an intoxicating phenomenon. I have so much to say, and thank you profoundly for listening.

(Oh and as a side note – They say the sincerest form of flattery is to copy – and we have had that experience with our book in a publication that did not just borrow our idea but was bold enough to use my exact phrasing from the back cover of the book. If you check the dates of publication it is obvious who is copying who…and so was I flattered? Not so much. Not in the least. Was I angry? Much. What is that old quote? The one that says, “Be Yourself – everyone else is already taken.” Well hell yes, of course.)

The Day of Epiphany, January 6th. approaches I wanted to honor it with this blog. According to Wikipedia, the Day of Epiphany is defined this way:

  • Epiphany (feeling), an experience of sudden and striking realization
  • Epiphany (religion), the appearance of a deity to a human, known as theophany
  • Hierophany, an epiphany or manifestation of the sacred more broadly defined than a theophany
  • Darśana, Hindu term commonly used for “visions of the divine”

I prefer to reference the modern definition of epiphany when I write about it – the “light bulb” effect when a piece of life-changing inspiration or information comes to you in a moment of grand realization. You have had that happen – I know you have. It is both shocking and welcomed – sometimes the “knowing” percolates up through your consciousness over a period of time and gently but powerfully gains your attention – at other times the message might strike you instantaneously like a bolt of lightening. The common thread is that an epiphany brings information – an enlightening message of some variety – that you did not have before. A missing piece in your plans. And you needed it to move forward. It is of great help to you and utmost importance that you pay attention to it.

There are some keys to accommodating the arrival of the coveted epiphany – the best one is to remain open and present, living in the now, aware and alert to all possibilities. Keep a receptive mind, engaged and involved in life. Be hopeful. Have faith.

The creative epiphany – read about it. Listen. Have one.

www.epiphanysfriends.com

The Creative Epiphany – Creativity is Kept Alive With a Youthful Heart

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

 Photo courtesy of funstuffblogandreviews.wordpress.com

This time of year is especially appropriate for allowing your inner child to surface – all you have to do is to dig deep and remember the wonder of Christmas Eve. The excitement, the anticipation, the joy of that time in your childhood comes rushing back as if it were yesterday, and if you have children or grandchildren or even little friends who are going to experience that precious time then you are fortunate indeed to see it again through those innocent eyes. Seek that out, cherish it and use it to fuel your creativity.

What separates the older “grumps” from the older but still “young-at-hearts” among us lies in our ability to recollect, imagine and live again as if “for the first time”  the meaningful and memorable windows in time when we were the most engaged, inspired and  impressed. Lucky be you if you have some of those special moments in time to recall; I know there are those out there who do not. And If you do not, your job is to find special moments now…that is your mission…make up for lost time…live milestone moments again the way you want them to be. Get it right and hang on to it while you can. Be young at heart.

I have always believed that as creative people our BFF – best friend forever – is imagination. I have written about imagination before in these blog posts, clarifying her relationship with creativity. Those two beautiful qualities do go hand in hand. And so if your imagination is running on empty, if you have gotten a little rusty in the day-dreaming department, or if you have allowed the stark reality of things to get its icy grip on you, you are probably missing the creativity also. Pessimism is your worst enemy when your creativity is taking a leave of absence. Creativity will not feel welcome when you are bleak with pessimism. Kids are seldom pessimistic. The hopes, the dreams, the fascination with the smallest details, the amazement at each unfolding day is what children manifest for us. How long has it been since you talked to a 5 year old? Spend 10 minutes at that and you are made of stone if you are not smiling and engaged and wanting more of that magical stuff.

When I paint with my adorable, 5 year old, curly-haired niece, we mix colors – red and blue make purple, her favorite, and her eyes widen in surprise. Yellow and blue make green – astonishing! MAGIC! Several weeks later she asks me, “How can we make white? I am all out of white.”

She asks us all, gathered around the table for Thanksgiving, when the pilgrims are going to join us for the feast. Good question. I wonder where they are. They are late. Wonder if they’ll be here in time for the pumpkin pie.

Without this in my life I would shrivel and die a little,  bit by bit. It is one of the reasons I moved back to Denver – I missed the  children in my family, having lived in a 55 and older community for about 3 years. No Halloween. No Easter egg hunts and no Christmas Eve spent tracking Santa and putting the cookies and milk out on the hearth. Some of this needs to rub off on us if we are to remain truly alive and engaged in all the stages of life. For every thing there is a season and a reason.

This quote was recently brought to my attention by a dear friend and fellow artist:
Science fiction author Ursula Le Guin wrote, “The creative adult is the child who has survived.” Wise artists practice daily with their inner youngster, and the task doesn’t lighten with success. Your child may slip into the shadows when more pressing professional concerns take hold.  Excerpted from the online newsletter of Canadian Artist Robert Genn.  Visit his website at http://www.robertgenn.com

Pablo Picasso had something to say on the subject as well: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso (Spanish cubist painter, 1881-1973)

I encourage you to live in the NOW of this joyful season. Don’t be the rain on anyone’s parade! Whether or not the Christmas season coincides with your personal beliefs, choose the “good tidings of great joy” section of the celebrations and ride along on that. Find your innocent and wondrous inner child and use it for the greater good, because you can’t go wrong with that, and your creativity will thank you for it….BELIEVE.

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.