• Darkneos
    689
    Essentially yes.

    Which is why I can say no artist is truly creative.
  • deletedusercb
    1.7k
    Well, I guess if you want to define the word 'creative' in such a way that it doesn't mean what most people mean, you can then say it doesn't happen (in art). Especially if you move the goalposts by adding in 'truly'. But for those use the word in the more common way, we will still find creativity in art and artists and in other places as well.
  • Brett
    3k


    It's not really creative if it isn't new or original, you are just copying from elsewhere.Darkneos

    You may not like what @Darkneos is saying but I think it needs to be considered seriously. Because it raises the whole question of originality and whether it exists, or even that it might exist but we may not, as I said, like it or be able to comprehend it.

    Up until the period of Post Impressionists most work, certainly all in the public sphere, was based on what we see. How that was interpreted varied from artist to artist, but all of them worked around representational objects.

    At some point around Post Impressionism the artist began to play around with ideas of personal perception. Artists began working around what they were thinking, not only what they were seeing. Abstract art moved completely away from representation. Conceptual art became all about the idea.

    The more art moved in this direction the more people looked away from art. Jackson Pollock supposedly went in a kind of trance when painting. It seemed to be about releasing something he felt or experienced onto the canvas with as little as possible coming between the two. He was largely scorned by the public.

    So are the Jackson Pollock paintings original? What earlier references do you think might exist that you could attach them?
  • Noble Dust
    7.8k
    I'm just gonna vomit up some opinions for ya'll and you can take or leave them. Word? @Brett @Coben @Darkneos

    My provisional definition of creative is: non-logical ways of arriving at correct assumptions.

    So, is visual art not creative? No. It is creative. Good visual art arrives at correctness by bypassing logic.

    I thought I had more in me, but this feels correct.
  • Brett
    3k


    My provisional definition of creative is: non-logical ways of arriving at correct assumptions.Noble Dust

    What would you mean by “correct assumptions”?
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    Sadly I'm starting to be more of the view of Brett. It's not really creative if it isn't new or original, you are just copying from elsewhere. It's hard to look at art the same way again, kind of makes me a little sad. Philosophy ruins life yet again.Darkneos

    Art is not creative. It's not creative to duplicate something you have seen before.Darkneos

    Duplicate in that art itself imitates something that already exists.Darkneos

    It’s interesting that you use the word ‘duplicate’ to mean ‘imitate’. While in many ways this is believed to be the aim of producing art, I don’t believe it is the aim of creativity in art. You can be artistic, and you can be creative, but not necessarily a creative artist.

    There is a difference between ‘duplicate’ and ‘imitate’ that should be the first step towards creativity in art. I agree that it’s not creative to duplicate something - but a creative artist recognises that what they see and what they create cannot be identical, ever. The saying ‘art imitates life’ refers not to ‘life’ as what we see, but what we experience, and this is necessarily subjective. Most aspiring artists don’t recognise the difference, and so they strive for comprehensible accuracy at the expense of originality. What results is a faithful imitation of what everyone expects to see.

    Jack Cummins described his own artistic efforts, in which he ‘adds’ something to what would otherwise be an attempt to duplicate a photograph. What he adds he believes to be an aspect of his subjective experience - except it’s in relation to the photograph, not to the street scene, and it’s also subsumed under an existing art style/technique (pointillist). It’s hard to say this isn’t a creative process - it certainly seems to be from the artist’s perspective, because the process is original in their mind. It will often also be described as ‘creative’ by those who have no capacity for art themselves. But I think you’re right in saying that what the artist produces from this process is not creative in itself. There is nothing of his own uniqueness identifiable in the product.

    My own realisation of this is part of why I stopped pursuing visual arts. I could reproduce on paper or canvas how I would visually sense a photograph, but not how I perceived a street scene. There was a feeling of dissatisfaction with my efforts ‘en plain air’, which I solved by taking photographs and working in the studio instead. What it took me a few years to realise was that there was little originality present in my work at all. I made some creative choices occasionally, with colour or style or technique, and I suppose I could have learned to be more creative with my artwork, but I didn’t. I still considered myself to be creative and artistic, but I was no longer under the illusion that I was ‘being creative’ with my art, except in my own mind. Visual art and also music continue to be therapeutic and expressive pursuits for me, personally. My creativity, however, required a different medium - one in which I was prepared to master, play with and then challenge the conventions.

    I think there are two parts to creativity: how one looks at, perceives or understands reality, and how one expresses, interprets or renders it. As humans, I think we all have the capacity to be creatively original in how we perceive reality in our own minds, but few of us can render this genuine originality in a way that others would perceive as comprehensible, relatable or accurate.

    I think the problem with maximising originality in art is that the artist then struggles to produce something that is comprehensible (as @Brett suggests), something that is correct (as @Noble Dust suggests), or something that is popular (ie. subjectively relatable).

    While creativity is not just about originality, it must be noticeable to recognise creativity. But if you find nothing original in art at all, then I would argue that this is because your perspective is limited. If you’re expecting originality in a particular aspect of art, then creativity which takes an original direction can be difficult to recognise - incomprehensible, unrelatable - from your perspective. As has been evident across art history, that doesn’t necessarily make it inaccurate as a perspective or understanding of reality.
  • Brett
    3k


    As humans, I think we all have the capacity to be creatively original in how we perceive reality in our own minds, but few of us can render this genuine originality in a way that others would perceive as comprehensible, relatable or accurate.Possibility

    I think the focus on originality has its merits, because, if you’re prepared to, it does make you consider the order in which creativity and the creative act takes place, that in its genuine form creativity has to spring from something.

    As I said before “The problem (with originality) was that few could relate to what they were looking at or reading because the conscious mind works against that confusion, true and original though it might be.”

    What the unconscious mind first produces is probably monstrous in the sense that there is no control over it. Like in dreams, no rational control over images or meaning and impossible to transmit in that form. The Surrealists tried but it just became another technique to imitate the unconscious mind. And like I said people tried it with automatic drawing and cut-ups. But people don’t address the world that way. They like things to gave some comprehensible order, maybe Noble Dust’s “ correct assumptions”.

    But that original form was there, it has to be. Creativity is the ability, that varies in degrees of success, to wrestle or manipulate that original form into some shape others can comprehend without completely separating it from its origins. That might be regarded as an interpretation, only because there’s no other way of expressing what happens. But it’s an interpretation of something original.

    Edit: so not all art is creative.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I was glad to hear someone else on this thread talking about art they make rather than just as a philosophical way.

    One aspect of the matter, which I think that has not been touched upon in this this thread in much depth, is the whole difference between art that is based on the objects in the real world and that which is symbolic. I think Brett maybe touches upon it a little in the previous post, but not upon actual experience of art making.But I would go further and say that I have experimented with the process of drawing from the inner world, or what Jung describes as active imagination.

    The whole process of making this kind of art seems so different from that of making art based on the material world, although I am talking about the way in which drawing symbolic realms does connect with more realistic drawing, in the sense that if I am drawing a person from my imagination I am using my past memories of copying people, which I have done since throughout my life, as I spent most of my childhood drawing pop singers from magazines. If anything, I would say that when I am drawing imaginary people I sometimes get concerned with getting all the proportions and perspective correctly too. Of course, the art arising from the symbolic does not have to be figurative at all, although I have not done art that is abstract entirely.

    I am not sure that the art based on the imagination is more creative entirely, but the whole process does seem very different and does seem to arise from a different dimension to that which is based on depicting the everyday world. I think that Jung did are interesting, and I also feel inspired by the work of Cecil Collins and Alex Grey.

    However, I have to admit that I do not do much art currently. I make all kinds of excuses about why I am not doing so.
  • deletedusercb
    1.7k
    I think that's generally a part of creativity. And via non-logical processes it something new is present. Is it completely new? Like not made ultimately of quarks or sharing no characteristics with what has gone before, no. Thjat's the creativity of a deity. We don't have to invent a new geometrical shape,new kind of matter and em radiation to create. We build and combine and new things emerge, some with emergent properties. That's the kind of creation we non-deities have access to. New things rather than things that have no connection to anything that ever existed before.
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    I think the focus on originality has its merits, because, if you’re prepared to, it does make you consider the order in which creativity and the creative act takes place, that in its genuine form creativity has to spring from something.Brett

    And we return to the idea of ‘order’ in the relation between creativity and action. Metaphorically speaking, I would say creativity ‘springs’ from imaginable possibility through subjectively perceived potentiality (in relation to conceptual structure), and the creative act ‘springs’ from this perceived potentiality through the individual will (in relation to interoception of affect). But I don’t think either imaginable possibility nor perceived potentiality exist in a necessary temporal sequence in relation to the creative act, and while perception of potentiality logically precedes the creative act, imaginable possibility need not logically precede this perception of potentiality. It does seem, however, to purposively precede it in an ontological sense. This pertains to the dimensionality that I continue to apply to ontological descriptions of relational structure.

    I hope I’m making some sense here. I should point out that perceived potentiality is not necessarily apperceived (in a conscious sense) prior to the creative act, neither is imaginable possibility necessarily imagined (in a self-conscious sense).

    As I said before “The problem (with originality) was that few could relate to what they were looking at or reading because the conscious mind works against that confusion, true and original though it might be.”

    What the unconscious mind first produces is probably monstrous in the sense that there is no control over it. Like in dreams, no rational control over images or meaning and impossible to transmit in that form. The Surrealists tried but it just became another technique to imitate the unconscious mind. And like I said people tried it with automatic drawing and cut-ups. But people don’t address the world that way. They like things to gave some comprehensible order, maybe Noble Dust’s “ correct assumptions”.
    Brett

    The whole point of automatic writing or drawing is to deconstruct this illusion we have that the conscious mind (the faculties of self-consciousness) must somehow ‘gain control’ over the unconscious mind (the faculties of consciousness). Creativity, as I have said, is about increasing awareness, connection and collaboration - what looks like mere imitation is a path towards understanding that doesn’t aim to control, but to collaborate. It isn’t about duplicating how people commonly address the world, but in exploring the options and alternatives for better accuracy, comprehensibility and relatability. Surrealism just becomes part of this process.

    Creativity is not like Science in that it doesn’t strive for consolidation - it is the process that matters. What is made - whether it’s an image, a sculpture, a dance, a system, a theory - is just a way of sharing the progress with others, collaborating beyond our own temporal existence.

    But that original form was there, it has to be. Creativity is the ability, that varies in degrees of success, to wrestle or manipulate that original form into some shape others can comprehend without completely separating it from its origins. That might be regarded as an interpretation, only because there’s no other way of expressing what happens. But it’s an interpretation of something original.

    Edit: so not all art is creative.
    Brett

    The artist is the original ‘form’. It is the progress in awareness, connection and collaboration that the artist has integrated which they attempt to express. Not all art is creative, no - and much of it fails to express originality. From personal experience, this has quite a bit to do with fear and self-doubt. As artists, we open up ourselves - this original form - to criticism: the extent to which ‘I’ as the artist lack originality, accuracy, comprehensibility and popularity is on display in a genuinely creative work. We hold back on expressing all of our originality - choosing instead to consolidate much of it under proven or popular theories, logic or language systems, archetypes, culturally significant styles, etc. It is the extent to which we challenge and transcend these systems in our work (success or fail) that we make use of our creativity, but it’s only our successes that build our identity as an artist. To fail is to expose ourselves to experiences of pain, humility, lack and loss. The more structured and defined this identity, the less creative we’re prepared to be.
  • Darkneos
    689
    I disagree. The artist believes that what they create and what they see aren't identical but in a sense they are. They believe themselves to be creating when they are just duplicating various things they have known before. They aren't really making anything, just pushing paint around.

    I think there are two parts to creativity: how one looks at, perceives or understands reality, and how one expresses, interprets or renders it. As humans, I think we all have the capacity to be creatively original in how we perceive reality in our own minds, but few of us can render this genuine originality in a way that others would perceive as comprehensible, relatable or accurate.Possibility

    We don't. There is no original way to see reality, it's all variations on a theme. There is ZERO creativity present in either the perception or the expression of it either. It's just duplication.
  • Brett
    3k


    Actually I think there is something that is original, but it can’t be made material, and in fact the effort to make it material destroys the original.

    “ We can interpret Zen’s nondualistic experience epistemologically as that experience which arises from a nondiscriminatory state of meditational awareness. ... It may also be characterized as nondiscriminatory discrimination, in order to capture a sense of how things appear in meditational awareness. In such awareness no ego is posited either as an active or a passive agent in constituting the things of experience, as this awareness renders useless the active-passive scheme as an explanatory model. This awareness lets a thing announce itself as a thing.” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-zen/

    This awareness creates a situation where you see something without discrimination, without conscious input, without us making it something. So you are seeing something in its original form,
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I just read your link on Zen. It is interesting, but I think it would be mistaken to think that is more 'original,' or superior to all other states of consciousness. After all, if the states of mind des bribed are experienced by a succession of individuals you could end up saying that these will not be the 'original', creative ones, but replication.

    Also, in your understanding of creativity in relation to art, I think that you fail to understand the creative process itself. Many of the great artists may have achieved profound altered states of awareness in the rendering of making art. The actual art is not identical to these states of consciousness but, nevertheless, through the communication in their art, may be able to convey aspects of those states to others.
  • Brett
    3k


    It is interesting, but I think it would be mistaken to think that is more 'original,' or superior to all other states of consciousness. After all, if the states of mind des bribed are experienced by a succession of individuals you could end up saying that these will not be the 'original', creative ones, but replication.Jack Cummins

    I’ve experienced this state of mind once. It was unexpected but I knew enough to understand what was happening. I would also say it is superior to all other states of consciousness. Some here might know what I’m talking about.

    If this state of mind is experienced by a succession of individuals I don’t think it could be called replication. Except to say that a moment of truth will always be the same in that it is true.

    Also, in your understanding of creativity in relation to art, I think that you fail to understand the creative process itself. Many of the great artists may have achieved profound altered states of awareness in the rendering of making art. The actual art is not identical to these states of consciousness but, nevertheless, through the communication in their art, may be able to convey aspects of those states to others.Jack Cummins

    I feel quite confident in talking about the creative process. I’m not really talking about altered states of awareness in the making of art. No, the actual art is not identical to those states (the ones I refer to, which is not altered states). Nor do I think the artist’s intention is to convey those states. Once the work is finished the artist has very little interest in it. It’s the process that counts. The artist is the supreme egotist.

    I have to point out that we are always referring to visual arts. Dancing and poetry, how do we address that on these terms?
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I am not in any way wishing to undervalue your experience, but I think that there is a danger in making claims about whose or which experiences are superior. We are all aware of our subjective ones primarily and who can say who has reached the superior state ultimately?

    Certain individuals might have been ranked as geniuses or enlightened ones by many, but perhaps even such views are linked to the cultural contexts in which they were esteemed. I am sure that many brilliant minds have been viewed negatively and undervalued. Some highly creative individuals have been labelled as mentally ill as well.

    And I think that it is wrong to judge the artist as the supreme egotist. Some might be, but others are extremely humble, so it is not right to make generalisations. I would say that the issues of creativity and the visual arts are applicable to the other arts too.
  • Brett
    3k


    but I think that there is a danger in making claims about whose or which experiences are superior.Jack Cummins

    What danger is that?

    And I think that it is wrong to judge the artist as the supreme egotist.Jack Cummins

    I say that because he/she doesn’t really care about you.

    Edit: I should make clear that my experience, the state of mind I was referring to is not an altered state.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I have already said that I am not in any way wishing to undervalue your experience. I would say my choice of the term altered consciousness may have been not the best because it conjures up possible scenarios of intoxication. I chose it, because I was about to write elevated states of consciousness and this could be too simplistic.

    I don't want to label your experience at all, but I would say ask the idea of enlightenment might be a more helpful one? I think that the whole question of creativity or enlightenment is central here, and probably this is away from the actual matter of the debate about whether art can be called creative. But another useful idea which could encompass what are categorical as heightened states of creativity or enlightenment is the notion of peak experiences.
  • Brett
    3k


    I have already said that I am not in any way wishing to undervalue your experience.Jack Cummins

    No, it’s fine. I’m not suggesting that.

    The experience is not connected to art, only to ideas of originality. I don’t regard enlightenment as any part of this. It might be worth considering, to keep things in perspective, the cold determination of many artists. And I’m talking about artists as opposed to a group of people who think they’re creative, which has nothing to do with it. These are people who put their art before anything else. They destroy in the process of creating.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I still think that there while there may be some cold determine artists, there are many who are not. I have one good friend who could be called an artist in the full sense, as she has regular exhibitions and makes her living through her art. She is the complete opposite to cold . She is determined, but that is because she has experienced so many obstacles in her path.
  • Brett
    3k


    I have one good friend who could be called an artist in the full sense, as she has regular exhibitions and makes her living through her art.Jack Cummins

    With due respect I don’t think that means anything.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I am simply talking about an example of an artist living in daily life, in the way that you are speaking of your own experience. It is about speaking of the particular rather than the general.
  • Brett
    3k


    What I mean is that having exhibitions and making a living does not necessarily mean one is an artist. Just how many artists can there be in the world? How many masterpieces can there be?
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I am sure that there could be various definitions of 'an artist' but the one I used is a generic one, in the sense of speaking of a person being a professional. This is in the same way that the distinction is used in writing circles, to distinguish from that of an amateur. Of course, it is not an absolute one because in some cases the amateur may be be as skilled or more skilled, and most professionals will not paint or write masterpieces, but I would be the last to deny anyone's basic creativity. The denial of such creativity is to rob a person of their essential humanity.
  • Darkneos
    689
    I don't put much stock in Zen philosophy. It sounds like it's based on an ignorance of neuroscience.
  • Brett
    3k


    It sounds like it's based on an ignorance of neuroscience.Darkneos

    What makes you say that?

    Edit: yes I guess they were ignorant of neuroscience. But why don’t you put much stock in Zen philosophy?
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    I disagree. The artist believes that what they create and what they see aren't identical but in a sense they are. They believe themselves to be creating when they are just duplicating various things they have known before. They aren't really making anything, just pushing paint around.Darkneos

    First of all, I don’t think it helps to make such sweeping generalisations about what ‘the artist’ believes. To acknowledge that they aren’t identical is NOT to say that they’re original - only that an imitation is not a duplicate. To say that two things are identical ‘in a sense’ is to say that they are identical only by a particular interpretation - ie. by external observation, or by focusing on only one aspect. In a general sense, they are not. The particular sense in which they appear identical acts is a method of grounding the creative idea in something familiar.

    An artist is someone who practises or performs a creative act - but it is a common misconception that anything (new, original or otherwise) needs to be consolidated or made for others to observe. To create is not to ‘make’ but to ‘bring into existence’. Someone can be creative whether or not they consider themselves to be an artist. From your perspective, they’re just pushing paint around, but it’s the internal process of restructuring potentiality that matters.

    I do agree, however, that many artists do believe themselves to be ‘creating’ when they’re just making, Also many people who consider themselves ‘artists’ are creative, but not creative artists - they can’t or won’t manifest their creativity in what they make. So, in all honesty, although I am creative, the visual art that I make is rarely creative in itself. In consolidating an imitation (not a duplication) of my subjective experience for an audience, I feel less at risk when I exclude what I’m afraid might be judged as incomprehensible, unrelatable or inaccurate: my originality. As the audience, you are open to original experiences only insofar as they are comprehensible, relatable and accurate - which is not very original. So an artist creates in their mind a much broader perspective of reality than what they make, and in making negotiates a fine line between surprising their audience and challenging them more than they’re ready to expect in terms of relating to reality.

    There is no original way to see reality, it's all variations on a theme. There is ZERO creativity present in either the perception or the expression of it either. It's just duplication.Darkneos

    I’m not saying there is ‘an original way to see reality’ - I’m saying that originality exists in how we each perceive reality, but rarely in how we express, interpret or render it, because we self-consciously ignore, isolate or exclude it. A ‘variation on a theme’ is not a duplication - it has, by definition, an element of original perspective to it, in relation to an indeterminate theme. For duplication to occur, the entire process must be identical and unalterable, but this can never be the case - even a mechanical duplication process is susceptible to variation on the ‘theme’ (it’s what ‘quality control’ is for). This brings us back to another assumption about creativity: intentionality. We assume this originality to be intentional, that an artist must mean for what they create to be ‘original’, or to adhere to a pre-existing ‘theme’. But originality, or variation on the theme, is an essential aspect of any interaction, whether or not anyone is conscious of it in relation to an expected ‘theme’. It is this variability that most of us try to ignore, isolate or exclude from our relation to (ie. control of) reality.

    FWIW, I don’t see creativity as the domain of the artist, but an underlying process of existence.
  • praxis
    6.2k
    This awareness creates a situation where you see something without discrimination, without conscious input, without us making it something. So you are seeing something in its original form,Brett

    Non-dual originality, :chin: , an original claim if I’ve ever heard one. :clap:
  • praxis
    6.2k
    If it is just drawing from things that already exist? Wouldn't that just be copying things then and not being original or creative?Darkneos

    Creativity is just one aspect of art, but I think exists in any work of art, more or less. The results of dawing an object as realistically as possible, for example, would unquestionably be original to some extent. Even taking a photograph would be original to some extent, unless all the conditions of the photograph were exactly duplicated, which would be very difficult in most situations.

    Have you ever observed a group of artists work from the same subject? The results are wildly different even without them trying to be original or creative.
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    One aspect of the matter, which I think that has not been touched upon in this this thread in much depth, is the whole difference between art that is based on the objects in the real world and that which is symbolic. I think Brett maybe touches upon it a little in the previous post, but not upon actual experience of art making.But I would go further and say that I have experimented with the process of drawing from the inner world, or what Jung describes as active imagination.

    The whole process of making this kind of art seems so different from that of making art based on the material world, although I am talking about the way in which drawing symbolic realms does connect with more realistic drawing, in the sense that if I am drawing a person from my imagination I am using my past memories of copying people, which I have done since throughout my life, as I spent most of my childhood drawing pop singers from magazines. If anything, I would say that when I am drawing imaginary people I sometimes get concerned with getting all the proportions and perspective correctly too. Of course, the art arising from the symbolic does not have to be figurative at all, although I have not done art that is abstract entirely.

    I am not sure that the art based on the imagination is more creative entirely, but the whole process does seem very different and does seem to arise from a different dimension to that which is based on depicting the everyday world.
    Jack Cummins

    The distinction between objects and symbols/concepts in art is an interesting one, and I have participated in workshops on symbolic expression in art. In my view, it’s about the process of perceiving and rendering the dimensional complexity of information.

    When you draw from a photograph, there is no variability in the perspective - you already have a two-dimensional rendering of a three-dimensional perception. But if the artist cannot duplicate the process that produced the photograph, then what they paint is not a duplication, but an imitation. There is little room for originality here, but it will never be entirely void of originality.

    When you draw from life, you acknowledge a variability in perception, from which you choose (unconsciously or consciously) with each brushstroke application. IF you stay in one spot and ask the model not to move, you can produce a predictable two-dimensional rendering of a face from a three-dimensional perception.

    When you draw from imagination, you are selecting from conceptual structures or predictions (5D) and structuring them into a pattern of interrelated movements (4D), which are continually adjusted according to their evaluated success in rendering the prediction, which is also entirely variable at every point. When you talk about getting all the proportions and perspective ‘correct’, this is in reference to a predictable two-dimensional rendering of a face from a three-dimensional perception - you are limiting your perspective to follow convention in interpretation/expression.

    To the extent that each artwork deviates from convention, how much of that variability is a ‘failure’ of technique, and how much is the unique three, four, five or even six-dimensional perspective of the artist influencing variability in brushstroke application?
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I think that the whole area of art based on symbolism is an interesting area, although I am not one to say that art based on 3D reality is not creative. One aspect which I think has not been mentioned is that paintings, drawings and photographs translate 3D reality into 2. This could be seen as reductive, as in copying, but the whole translation into lesser dimensions does even involve synthetic perception, and styles. When one reaches out into four or more dimensions this synthesis, to portray perceptions is more complex, because it contains more that is hidden from the naked eye

    I have never done sculpture, but one friend who does, spoke of how she carves, and feels a living connection with the wood, bringing out patterns and energy within it. When she used to speak in this way, and I saw her working, I could feel the creativity pervading her, and this level she was experiencing seemed to transcend the whole issue of being 'original' or not, as discussed in this thread because it was about primal expression, at a deep level.

    But, on the level of my own symbolic expression, I think that the reason why I focus on the same concerns in symbolic art is because I was taught to think that way. At A level, the whole emphasis was upon exactness and perfection. I did not do a foundation course or a degree in art, but I did an illustration course and one on art therapy. In illustration, the tutor stressed the importance of producing camera ready work, and the stage between a concept and the finished art seemed to almost get left out.

    On the art therapy course, the majority of the other students had done an art degree, in which they had done more experimental work, whereas I was accepted on the basis of my portfolio, but I did feel that meant I lacked a certain amount of some of the experience which some of the others had. The course itself allowed for a certain amount of experimentation but because the emotional and group experience were considered as extremely important, sometimes the chance to explore the symbolic seemed to get pushed into the background.

    My initial encounter with symbolic art was actually before I did the art therapy course, by a friend who had done a lot of art based on his own experience. He encouraged me to look within as he had done. My friend had done loads of pictures based on his own life and tried to get his work exhibited. He found that he encountered a lot of prejudice within art circles because it was obvious that he had not been to art school. His use of materials and elements of his drawing abilities did not stand up to certain expectations and it would probably be true to say that he was probably more in the tradition of 'outsider art', which is of great value and significance.

    Personally, I would love to do more experimental work, in which I explore the symbolic dimensions, with less feelings of restrictions about the need to draw or paint 'correctly'. Ideally, I would like to find a workshop after the pandemic because it can be more motivational than working alone in a room. In the last few years I feel that I have travelled much further from the third dimensions, into fourth, fifth and unknown ones and would like to captivate the multidimensional reality in art.

    Above all else, I do think a central aspect of the creative process in the visual and other arts is about accessing other levels of consciousness. The art produced is not just to be seen as an end but as a testimony to the journey which has taken place. I would say that the possible areas of failure of technique and brushstrokes may result from the interaction with energy arising in the other dimensions.
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