Tag 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!

 

Year Long Canvas Project #4

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

newclass 004

Year Long Canvas in progress  – un-named, copyright 2014 Jo Ann Brown-Scott

Ok well class on Monday was daunting – the wind was blowing hard and many students had mishaps just getting up to and through the Denver Art Students League doors, which are preceded by many steep steps. There were actually 2 people who fell and needed first aid for minor, but bleeding, cuts and bruises. The never ending parade of canvases in and out of the double doors at the top of the concrete stairs, like a fluid gallery show with legs, is entertaining on a nice day but accompanied by wind or even rain, sleet, snow or hail it becomes difficult to watch. Not only canvases but people with various movable carts full of art supplies, carrying everything they and their imaginations require for the afternoon. That’s just the logistics of it – no way to get around it. Then you settle into the room and set up your art camp.

My year long canvas and I, plus one other canvas in progress and one that is finished but needed its final critique, made it in just fine, but across the room was a woman who was one of the casualties. Blood happening, particularly on the face of anyone, is not a fun thing to see. She had hit the pavement face first. She was basically fine, needing no stitches, but cut inside both lips, a small gash on the bridge of her nose, badly bruised already plus quite shaken and needing first aid so we all made sure she got the care she needed. It took us all awhile to calm down.

My YLC (year long canvas) had just 2 colors, Paynes gray and then Naples yellow, overlapped in a diagonal swoop, as you remember from the previous blog post last week on this subject. My esteemed instructor, Homare Ikeda, took a long glance at it as I set up camp and pronounced that is was a great start, with a large smile on his face. Wow – what had seemed underwhelming to me and so effortless and simple got the thumbs up. I was encouraged. I decided to proceed with work on it while I was fresh. I added a couple areas of white. Then I worked in some larger areas of Warm gray – I call it “dove gray” – because it is neutral and also because it has faint undertones of lavender. Maybe that is an indication of things to come, maybe not.

I am attempting to remain neutral for as long as I can because the addition of COLOR! brings such emotional reaction. We are all sucked in with the sensuality and the strength of color. Once you allow it entry, it can take over at the expense of all else and you might get so caught up in its spell that composition takes a back seat and the painting is out of your control. I see that happen to me and many other painters. You have to control that lovely monster.

Even with the little bit of work I have done so far, as I work am asking and checking myself, always walking the multiple lines of – Is the composition  merely ok? –  is it boring and basic and just barely enough to work, lacking potential for greatness, and not impressive enough yet to be better than average? Then adding more work and asking  – are the new additions an enhancement or not? Is there any one area that is really awful, or perhaps even really excellent, but must still be sacrificed (covered up) for the sake of the democracy of the entire dynamic?  Every stroke has to play well with all the others. As I paint along, I constantly ask myself what more can be done, knowing I can’t do much more today. I have to pace myself..

Several people walk up to it and say they like it just the way it is! Already!

Since I am assigned this year long project, I need to keep working, well past the times when I want so badly to stop because it works, it is exciting, it is strong. After some thought, I walk away from it. All done for today.

I love color, pattern and texture, but this project is all about restraint. I was feeling so restrained that I was comatose. The fast and furious painting that came after my short amount of time spent working on the YLC was a reaction  –  a quick and distinctive answer to that restraint. I let loose – see photo below. It is a small canvas (12×24) so it was completed in the rest of the afternoon and left me feeling happy. I think I detect a smile on the face of the art Buddha.

newclass 002

Acrylic painting by Jo Ann Brown-Scott, copyright 2014 not yet titled

 

Creativity – Surprisingly Human…

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

blossom

mixed media painting by Jo Ann Brown-Scott copyright 2013

Thought allied fearlessly to purpose becomes creative force. He who knows this is ready to become something higher and stronger than a bundle of wavering thoughts and fluctuating sensations. He who does this has become the conscious and intelligent wielder of his mental powers. (James Allen)

Many articles are written about creativity. It seems rather a newish thing, that after centuries of witnessing its manifestations but not bothering to stop and figure out what the internal dynamics of it are, we now seem to have the time to pick it apart and examine it more closely. Everybody wonders how it happens – what facilitates it, who gets it, how do we nurture it, does it peak and then decline with age, how it can be enhanced and how to increase its potential.

First of all, everybody gets their fair share because it awarded free at birth – absolutely no one is born without it. The degree to which it shows up depends upon which gene tendencies you begin to massage – because certain aspects of creativity can lay dormant if not discovered, acknowledged, encouraged, stroked and cared for. When I taught mixed media painting to adults, people came to my class who had been CEO’s of corporations, high earners and achievers, outstanding in their fields which of course requires enormous vision and creatiity. But they had waited until their retirement years to tentatively tap the latent but strong desire they had kept hidden to someday learn to paint. They had been extremely creative in other areas of their lives to the point where no one had a single clue they secretly wanted to paint. The desire had been put on the shelf or choked out entirely for years, so  that ambition of a different caliber could take the lead at the exclusion of all else.

The creativity was bound to come out sooner or later…or was it? We hear all the time about people who discover they can sing, dance, write, paint and numerous other creative activities well into their adult lives, and I say what a shame that they waited so long. I wish more people would live the wondrous, colorful world of creativity all along the journey and not confine it to the last couple chapters of the book of life. Think of it! Life is all about the journey…living in Technicolor is of great importance.

We must not be too ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint box. And, for this, Audacity is the only ticket. (Winston Churchill)

There is no secret formula for being highly creative. The habits of the most gifted creative people vary enormously – they are observed and envied, scrutinized and examined by people who want more of what they see. The trick to being creative and using the potential that is already there inside you is to dig deep and know yourself. Define what you desire, ask yourself if it is true and appropriate to who you authentically are (because not every one of us has exactly what it takes to be a Steven Spielberg) and what you are unconsciously drawn to, and give it some oxygen. Bring it out to the light of day. It does not have to crowd out everything else, to the extent that you drop whatever else you were doing and give it your complete 100% ALL  (although that has worked for many people) but it does mean that you must give it a fighting chance to be heard, seen and nurtured. You have to be willing to bring it out of hiding and show it to the world, unapologetically, unselfconsciously, and even proudly, as you sharpen your skills and learn. You cannot be timid – you must be strong – gutsy –  not easily discouraged – able to listen to criticism –  and you must have confidence and trust yourself even on the days when you are less convinced that what you are offering to the world is worthy of attention. Creative people make mistakes, get embarrassed, sometimes make fools of themselves all the damn time – even the best of them. But they keep going. They have tenacity. They are resilient.

But you knew all that, right?

A heartfelt sense of aspiring cuts through negativity about yourself; it cuts through the heavy trips you lay on yourself. (Pema Chodron)

The Creative Epiphany – What Goes Around…….eventually shows up again in abstract form

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

circles  Title  “What Goes Around…”

Mixed media Collage, copyright 2013, by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive and more constructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person. (Frank X Barron)

If I choose abstraction over reality, it is because I consider it the lesser chaos. (Robert Brault)

Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for color, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential. (Wassily Kandinsky)

This blog entry is brief, offering some thought provoking quotes, but posted primarily as a test to see if I can post a blog that does not get screwed up by the WordPress process as yesterday’s did! It was not my fault!

Many thanks for the exceptional collection of categorized quotes from the website of Robert Genn – www.painter’skeys.com.

visit:   http://artquotes.robertgenn.com/getquotes.php?catid=2&numcats=372#.UxeKhxTTmpo

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’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.

The Creative Epiphany – Seems like a Pattern Might be Forming

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

stairs  If you are a junkie for the sensuality of color, the allure of textures both worn and shiny new, and the perfectly fascinating personality of various patterns, then you must take a look here. I am an artist – I paint. I am especially passionate about color, texture and pattern which are always present to a certain degree in my artwork. I just returned from a trip to Singapore and Thailand – can you imagine my delight, observing such magnificent color, such tactile and time worn textures and such intensely busy pattern?  I was on such a happy/goofy level of sensory overload the entire time I was there that the culture shock of coming home was evident to me on so many levels…I flew through Seattle back into the states…and it was raining and gray….coming home…leaves gone from the trees…winter.

In this photo gallery I hope you will notice that this much color and pattern and texture brings a joyful response from your senses, a few audible WOW’s I hope – yes it is a lot to see all at once so take it in small doses if you’d like – but please do accept these pictures as a sign that the world can still present you with visual delights that make your heart race. Surprisingly the restaurant shophouse entry with white chairs, so uninhibited in color that you might suspect it of being Mexican, is actually located on Arab Street, where some of the most fun and friendly people greeted us. The ornate temple facades, reminiscent of icing on birthday cakes (no disrespect intended!)  are of course from the Grand Palace grounds in Bangkok where the three-dimensional tiny mosaic pieces are not much larger than your thumbnail. The gorgeous mural at the top of the stairs in the first photo is in the entry foyer of the Four Seasons Hotel in Bangkok.

Have a look – I hope I will detect a smile of pleasure on your face. If it makes you dizzy, enjoy the ride.

photo 5 (2)photo 4 (2)photo 2 (2)

photo 3 (3)   arab  urn  manone

mosaic  monks   flowers  mantwo

mosaictwophoto 1 (2)

The Creative Epiphany – I Ache to Paint

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

Roy

Mixed Media Collage titled For Roy by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

I dedicate this Blog entry to Roy Stauth….writer, adventurer and friend of Africa

With my previous blog entry I discussed the tendency of creativity to be dormant and downright absent in times of severe stress, but then, if you are not blocking its entry, to gradually come back through the door of your soul when you need it most. Creativity is your lifetime companion, there for the longest haul. It is a human quality awarded to you and all others free at birth. You need only be present to win it. Creativity’s presence is multi-purposed – to heal you and to be your companion when you most need her; to provide an emotional release; to communicate a message; to channel your angst (or your total joy) into a creation that might live on beyond you, thus leaving your unique mark on the world. Creativity almost always offers the world a message of your choice. Thanks to our predecessors who forged the path toward freedom of expression, you have the ultimate choice of deciding what to say and how to say it through your creativity. People are no longer compelled to paint for the emperor….they have a choice.

The process of being creative requires an opening up of your soul which brings an exposure of your human vulnerabilities and a willingness to take responsibility for what results. If the result of your creativity is a painting, for example, you will most assuredly always remember what it was you were going through at the time you painted it. It might reveal your deepest secrets for careful interpretation by the viewer, or to the casual viewer it may reveal nothing. But YOU know what is there, and if you are asked what prompted you to create such an image you will spill it out unapologetically. As with writing, if you are willing and able to “open a vein” and let it all bleed out of you, you are on the way to healing and communicating what you are all about. You are also on the way to greatness, because great works of art or literature always reveal passion. Only a handful of the great painters and writers, photographers, musicians and other creative folks ever gain recognition – there are many more out in the trenches whose greatness is never exposed to the public eye. I see their work everywhere and it thrills me.

During this time of moving to Denver I have had no time to paint. My brushes and tubes have been packed up for about 6 weeks now because I have had no time for the release of that passion. I feel like an explosion waiting to happen. Or Hoover damn about to spring a huge gushing leak. I am storing up creative energy and I pity the person who might be standing in my way when my new studio is finally set up and I am ready to walk in there and paint again – I will  mow over them like an 18 wheeler. Blood could be shed.

It is super strong, this need to create. It is a force of nature, its evidence still on the walls of ancient caves. With humanity came creativity, with creativity comes greater humanity and understanding. It is a thirst, almost equal to water and air and food in its ability to satisfy a yearning. My old college fine art professor told us that unless we were willing to sell our shoes to buy paint during a blizzard, we were not a true artist. Fortunately I never had to do that, but I probably would have if I had needed to, because my creativity would have instructed me how to make shoes out of something I had on hand.

The thousands of people who blog are manifesting the human need for expression. The need is all consuming. It is undeniable and larger than life, and yet many people around the globe have no means of creative expression available to them. Think how that might feel. We live in a day and time when the people without a voice are growing and the people who do have the means to express themselves are also growing. The wide disparity between the voice-less and the voices is alarming. I feel so fortunate to have several means of expressing myself. Many in the world do not. But that is an entire other problem of such enormity that I can barely stand to address it. Creativity is nothing to be taken for granted, and I never do. If you are among the relatively few on the planet who enjoy the freedom of giving it expression then lucky be you. The creativity you employ as your loyal and dedicated servant is your light in the darkness, and hopefully you will use it wisely and for the greater good, and heal your soul with it as well.

I live, I love, I paint. And I do write.