The creative process

[Jinyo]

Yes - Anne, Daizan - that is exactly it. I'm toying with a project inspired by Indra's Net just now - the idea is strong in my mind but I
have to keep letting the form go as the work develops organically, changes and searches out its own medium.

Anne - a friend introduced me to needle felting recently - I love working with all the dyed wools - brilliant range of colours - just like painting - but because of my physical disabilities I was finding it impossible to manage the needle punching (very repetitive and hard on wrist/finger joints and arm muscles). I have bought a machine that does the needle punching for me (its like a sewing machine) and its brilliant. It can punch up to 900 times a minute!).

will post some pics later,

Gassho
Jinyo

sat today

[Cooperix]

Here are some Diane Arbus images that have just recently surfaced.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/29/arts/design/diane-arbus-photos-unseen.html?hpw&rref=arts&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

makes me wonder about photographers and their "decisive moment" of creativity. Recording rather than making, how does that feel? The creative spark is there but in a very different way than I experience it I assume. And writers and poets, musicians, dancers...??

I have a friend who had a successful long career as a visual artist and is now a successful writer. She and I have discussed how those activities are very different. Different part of the brain engaged. Jinyo, you know about that, I suspect.

Anyway just wondering.

And Jinyo, images would be good! thanks.

gassho,
Anne
~st~

[Byrne]

I make a living off of music I've written (and co-written) and visual art I design (mostly t-shirts) Making these different things is exactly the same for me. I just do it. I don't think about it. I don't question. I don't get attached to any specific vision other than completing what I started. I am fortunate that life has created circumstances for me that I can do this with my wife and have forged an audience interested in what we do that keeps it going. In order to keep that audience engaged we must produce content. So we do. How that comes together is irrelevant to me. It happens in many different ways. Some stuff I've done gets forgotten. Some reminds me of a specific time. Some changes over time. Visual art especially changes over time. Whenever I'm making something I usually have a very frustrating inner voice lamenting my incompetence. I've learned to just accept that and keep moving. That approach works pretty well for me.

Gassho

Sat Today

[Rich]

"Inspiration/energy, can not be forced or manufactured."

So true Daizan.

"..I need to remember that it comes and goes, and that's okay."

and so true Geika!

For me the creative energy comes in a flash. And I mean only a flash. This moment might come out of no where, or it might come when I see an artwork that inspires me, or hear a meaningful turn of words, but usually it just arrives unbidden. It's more like an insight, where I have a "vision" of what I want to actualize. I am primarily a three dimensional artist. I cannot work unless I know where I am going. Once the "idea' is alive then I have to figure out how to make it work and this is "process". I have to figure out all the legistics: size, materials etc. And then I have to make a detailed sketch that I can work from (e.g. exact dimensions) so that I can "craft" the object. Of course there is creativity involved all along the way, but the real creativity was the birth of the idea and the rest is process with ongoing decisions to be made.

I think of painters, or dancers, musicians even cooks living out their creativity one brush stroke, one step one note oneingredient at a time. Creativity in motion. I've envied that abandon.

I think of creativity as part of everything, and when I step into a creative moment I've come home. It's that divine, it's like being for that moment imbued with grace. It's always there but sometimes (many times), I'm not.

Who knows why humans have always needed to "create"? but is sure makes for an interesting world.


Not sure this is making any sense. Creativity is a sacred act. Addictive and luscious.
Thanks for letting me speak.

Anne
~st~

Thanks for this. I identified with everything you said. When I am on the ice I am free to move about and create. And its totally spontaneous.

The universe itself is a continuous creative process. And the sensual is an extension or transformation of the creative energy.

SAT today

[Meishin]

Suspect that we all experience creativity in one way or another. Frankly when I am doing things that might be considered creative -- often in writing or photography -- I am so lost in the process, the technicalities, that I can go all day without eating and not realize it until my stomach starts to cry out. Literally "I" do not exist during those times. Afterwards sometimes "I" am pleased, more often not so much. It's like a koan. The more words one uses, the further one is away from.... I don't know anything about creativity, but looking back I can imagine that it happened while I was somewhere else.

Gassho
Meishin
sat today

[Cooperix]

OK. which animal would you choose to be if you were seeking a life living in the present moment?
Goat, badger?
Artists are nuts and this article makes me smile and so glad to live in a world where artists can become a goat and get a grant to do it.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/goatman-and-being-a-beast

sorry this is a bit off the topic of creative inspiration, but I thought you all might get a kick out of this artist's search for the present moment.
Zazen might be easier. Don't have to eat worms.

gassho.
Anne

just sat

[Amelia]

Wow... those guys really went for it, Anne! Thanks for posting.

Gassho, sat today

[Troy]

The creative process

My most creative moments have always been my darkest moments and its a place I really don't want visit again. Until recently, I thought this was the only way for me to tap in to my creativity.

Music has been my creative outlet ever since I can remember. I earned a music degree and played in various symphony orchestras for over 20 years. A couple years ago after we had our youngest, I stopped playing in the orchestra. I don't know if it was burn out from music or just having all my time consumed by work and family. The rehearsal, personal practice time and performance schedule just got to be too much.

So, I bought a camera on whim and fell in love. I don't know if it considered art or not but that is my creative outlet now. I really threw myself into it. I learned all the rules of lighting, composition, posing and the technical aspects of cameras, lenses and flashes. I would take people out with all this swirling in my head and do portraits sessions trying to get everything perfect. I was really trying to force my creativity and it wasn't working. So, I am learning to let go. I am finding just being present and having fun nurtures my creativity too.


..sat2day•合掌

[RichardH]

peanut.jpg

I came across this on the way to the studio yesterday. This little guy (saw it was male when moving him to a more dignified resting place) had been struck by a car earlier. He still had a peanut in his mouth.. part was eaten, part was still in the shell. Evidently he was heading home feeling pretty good. I couldn't help seeing a lesson; don't get so excited with the peanut that you don't see the car.

I have a peanut today, a gem of an art project that is filling me with purpose and energy. The world looks sunnier when things are cooking. Very absorbing.

A pause for all the beings great and small with hopes and dreams.

Gassho
Daizan

sat today

[Rich]

Good lesson

SAT today

[Kyonin]

Thank you for this reminder.

Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday

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I came across this on the way to the studio yesterday. This little guy (saw it was male when moving him to a more dignified resting place) had been struck by a car earlier. He still had a peanut in his mouth.. part was eaten, part was still in the shell. Evidently he was heading home feeling pretty good. I couldn't help seeing a lesson; don't get so excited with the peanut that you don't see the car.

I have a peanut today, a gem of an art project that is filling me with purpose and energy. The world looks sunnier when things are cooking. Very absorbing.

A pause for all the beings great and small with hopes and dreams.

Gassho
Daizan

sat today

[RichardH]

Hi. I would just like to mention that the Art Circle subforum has been opened up to new threads by members. If you are working on a project, and it is going well, or a tough struggle, or a murky wandering, or a bright dance... any creative project that you are engaged in, please feel free to start a thread, and share the process. We can all support each other in our endeavors.

I'll be starting a new thread in a few days showing the development of a new (for me) digital painting style. I look forward to seeing what sangha members are working on.

Gassho
Daizan

sat today

[dod]

Reading this thread made me think of an Instagram post I made this fall:

potentialandexhaustionsmall.jpeg
Potential and Exhaustion; my two states of being.

Thank you for starting this discussion Daizan, I appreciated reading this thread because it refers to something I am still learning myself, and something I'll likely have to continuously re-learn as circumstances change. I've been a practicing artist for 8 years since completing my BFA and I'm still learning how to make art in a sustainable-way energy/emotion-wise. I was starting to figure out comfortable, healthy creative habits when I began my MFA this fall. Now it seems I'm in the storm of productivity again, one that I find dangerously draining. I hope in the months ahead that I can find a way to work consistently at this high-volume level without emptying the bucket completely.

Sitting has helped in ways I didn't expect. Less chronic-pain, more listening and being aware of myself while I'm painting.

I found the book "The Creative Habit" by choreographer Twyla Tharp to be helpful in my quest to create a long-term practice of creativity and beat that fear of the next project, fear of the ebb. https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Habi...creative+habit

And also, "Art and Fear" https://www.amazon.com/Art-Fear-Obse.../dp/0961454733

Just for fun, I'm curious... what might the parallels be between art-making and zazen?

ways they are alike: awareness, being in the moment, letting go...
ways art-making is not like zazen: it can be draining in a way zazen is not, one is doing as opposed to not-doing, in a lot of art-making one has the expectation of a result...

feel free to add your own...

Gassho,

Jessie
~sat today~

[alexpaul]

For any writers out there - I recommend Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. The title sounds gimmicky, but it is actually an incredible book of essays on how he wrote his much-loved stories. He instructs budding writers (and this may apply to other art forms too) to give up trying to control the story and to let it "write itself." This has been a hard lesson for me to learn, as it's so appealing to try to map out a story fully before writing it. But I've found it to be true that the more I try to control the story, the less effective it turns out. The best writing seems to happen in a state of flow when the story is simply my fingers typing it out as it takes shape. Ironically a lot of truth comes out when writing this way, as long as the writer is willing to give up control. Bradbury kept a reminder near his typewriter saying "Don't think."