YOUR CREATIVE SPIRIT: COMING, GOING, COMING

BY MARY CURRAN

We are surrounded by the wonders of impermanence andthe magic of temporary… things seen and experienced out of the corner of life’s eye…people, places, events, fairies, dreams, reflected light.  Sometimes we have mixed feelings about the “temporary.”  Hugh Prather, in The Little Book of Letting Go, says that it is a reminder that we can’t control time, conditions, and impacts out into the future – beyond our immediate reach.  If we let ourselves, we tend to focus on problems, not solutions.  We worry out of fear of what will or won’t happen.  He also advises that worrying doesn’t make us more comfortable, and it doesn’t make for better decisions.  It does fragment our mind, shatter our focus, distort our perspective, and destroy our inner ease (I try not to waste a “perfectly good worry” on things I can’t influence, fix, or change.)

We can mistake worry for a part of planning.  It isn’t.  Fear is not a good motivator to use on ourselves (or others), and it does change our body chemistry…remember all that cortisol the TV ads talk about?  You don’t want that in your chemical soup.  Artist Robert Rauschenberg says that, “restrictions aren’t limitations, they’re just what you happen to be working with.”  So, don’t waste your energy worrying…get going.

This time of year a lot of us are sensitive to changes in the amount of daylight.  Although the seasonal light changes are temporary, and the concerns or problems that we perceive are also temporary, we still can become caught up by it.  In a larger sense, we sometimes choose not to try or do something because “conditions” are not just right…the feeling that whatever we create must be forever, for all time…and we’re just not up to it. (I believe that the great scrapbook of life does not always require archival papers.)

I suggest using the Tim Gunn Project Runway concept…make it work, deal with what is. Don’t feel that you have to start over because you feel like abandoning a project or situation when things aren’t quite right or don’t come out the way you expected… because you’re out of the “right” supply, or the time isn’t just right.  When you think about it, constraints give a reason for being more creative, and remember, those constraints give you freedom from being perfect.

Therefore, take your creativity vitamins by choosing to work with unusual stuff and situations.  Try unrealistic, silly substitutions; ask, “How else?” and, “What else?” questions to get you started.  Doing this sort of deviation takes you out of your comfort zone and encourages you to think and create in unexpected ways.  The beauty of this (and a way to justify doing it if you need it) is that when you are smacked with an unusual situation in real life, you will have had actual experience, processes, comfort and confidence to fall back on for “conventional” use.  It is a way to encourage yourself to use what you have, and should you be hesitant, consider these examples: 1., Randi Feuerhelm-Watts, in Wide Open, describes an Iowa man who trained to climb Mt. Everest by months of climbing stairs while wearing a 40 pound backpack.  2., Did you know that Stradivari made some of his best violins from discarded, broken, water-logged oars that he found at the Venice docks?

Your senses are the creativity supplies that you have with you all the time, according to Randi, and your mind is your sketchbook.  You’re adding to your resource collection every time you look to see, breathe to smell, reach out to touch, listen to hear, and open your mouth to taste.  I’ve often read that it is important to take time to be silent to really listen (an aside…silent and listen use the same letters, and being silent in our mind and with our mouth helps us to listen better, hear more, and understand more deeply).

Going back to the temporary concept…let’s say to ourselves that sometimes, temporary is OK.  Let’s suspend the notion that something isn’t worth doing if it won’t “last.”  Eluding the “forever factor” gives freedom and space for your creative urges to come out of the cracks and creases of your mind…because you have created a space for them to be …to have existence.  A short time ago, a friend, David, from Swanstone Gardens, handed me a DVD to enjoy.  It was Rivers and Tides: Working with Time (ISBN 0-8109-5586-5, abramsbooks.com).  The work of Andy Goldsworthy, an artist of Penpont, Scotland is shown at work.  As I watched, I realized that I’d saved articles about his work in my creativity workshop files, and have designed class projects based on his approach.

Goldsworthy works outside, using what is there…wherever “there” is.  Arthur Lubow, in the November, 2005, Smithsonian, says that he is a latter-day impressionist, obsessed with the way sunlight falls and flickers, especially on water and leaves.  If you want a stylistic interpretation, Lubow suggests that the in-and-of nature work parallels the plein -air sketches of landscape artists as he draws on the landscape, itself.  Andy says that he,”Shakes hands with a place and gets to work.”   He uses the space, time (and the relentlessness of it), and the materials available as inspiration.  Because the work can be, and often is, very temporary, he documents his work with photos and videos.  He says that this allows him to see the language of what he has made, helping him to understand it, as well as his process, materials, and focus.  “The real work is the change,” the work being made, finished and enhanced by the elements and time.  As the work fades, floats away, or crumbles, he sees the process as “giving things back to the earth,” not an act of destruction (find that DVD somewhere!).

The same Smithsonian issue containing the Lubow article also featured Meya Lin (Vietnam War Memorial).  She wants us to listen to our creative urges, and believes that we have no option but to follow our creative desires.  It seems to me that we often stop ourselves (because we can’t see the value?) if we (or “others”) can’t see the purpose or use for doing/creating things.  We don’t respond to our urge, our need to create (it is in there, you know).  Lin says, “I think with my hands…I do not think that you can find a reason for everything that you make.”  As many artists do, she does her research, but says that, “At a certain point, I sort of stop looking for research.  I just shut it all down, and this other stuff comes out.”  (Sound familiar?  It is step 4 of the creative process, the “going away,” we talked about in earlier articles.)

Jumping In

We live with impermanence all around us.  The special birthday cake gets eaten, perms grow out, grass gets cut (sometimes), dust reappears, and scratching an itch (of any kind) is only a temporary satisfaction.

Let’s celebrate the temporary, the fleeting, the just for now.  Promise yourself that you will mark winter’s progress with a few intentionally perishable creative projects.  Allow what you create to be a celebration of “how it goes,” of the reality that spring is closer now than yesterday, and that winter is not a time empty of creative resources (and take a few photos while you’re at it).

Take a Twig Walk

On your winter stroll (If you don’t do this, start now.), collect a number of tree and bush cast offs, or bring a nippers out into the yard and do a bit of pruning.  1. Lay out twig star shapes, glue, and wire or tie off the contact points.  Suspend them in windows and trees.  Hang them on your house.  Attach stakes and poke them into your winter garden.  Slather them with peanut butter and seeds for the birds and squirrels.  Plunk a candle in the center for your table.   2. Use more of them to make a temporary tree.  Anchor in a container, and every day add one leaf or blossom cut from colorful magazine pages or junk mail.  Cut bird and butterfly shapes, too.

Sky Talk

Check out the winter sky.  Select a star. Claim it, name it, and make up its story.  Make a certificate if you wish, and visit it nightly, thanks included.

Snow Play

Option 1. Create a bunch of small snow creatures. Place them where you can see them…porch rail, window sill, on the fence, and watch them change as days pass. If the snow won’t pack, spritz it with water, stir, and go for it.  2. Build a snow labyrinth.  Use snow to mark the path by building or shoveling…or fill squirt guns with Kool Aid and draw it on the snow.  3. If your Christmas tree is still hanging around somewhere, cut and lay/stand the branches to mark a path or pattern (think easy spring pick up!).

(When I was a child, I made life-sized, legless horses with rug saddles, and rode for hours. I’ve had one as an adult, too, as a surprise birthday gift.)

Icicle Sculpture

This is right from Andy Goldsworthy…break icicles off their perches, snap into useful sizes, and stick the pieces together with a bit of water (spit may seem a good choice, but remember the flagpole syndrome).  Gnaw to fit if you need to, and watch how the sun and wind change your creation over time.  They positively glow and glisten as the sun moves.

Inside Where It’s Warm (and silly)

Spread pudding on a plate.  Draw with your fingers, silverware, popsicle stick…include frequent licking of your drawing tool.  Admire your art, lick the plate (or use your drawing tool)…or, freeze it and make a mess later.

For the Birds

Closer to spring, create a “build your nest” sculpture out of corrugated cardboard and snivels you have around the house.  Use a double thickness so you can poke things into/between the edges for easy plucking.  Pick a shape…a profile?  A series of graduated size geometric shapes (the largest shape needs to be double thickness, like the profile, the others can be single layers).  “Sew” through the layers with string, inserting a stake or hanging loop. Tuck gathered materials between the layers, and cut them into nest-sized lengths…bits of un-dyed raffia, twigs, yarn snippets, wool fleece or roving, feathers, ravels of sweaters, etc.  Keep an eye on the supplies, and replenish as necessary.

Do something to celebrate the universe’s cycles, see the “routine” with new eyes every day, and to paraphrase the words of Joe Engel, an 80 year old Auschwitz survivor (Leonard Pitts, Green bay Press Gazette, 10/9/07), may you dance as though your bones are made of joy!

 Mary Curran is an artist, creative process specialist, and writer.  Visit her at ArtiGras, February 2 & 3, 2008, at Shopko Hall, or check out classes at Swanstone Gardens, 920/866-9367, and at Sievers School of Fiber Arts, 920/847-2264, or email Mary at crow.41@hotmail.com, if you want to schedule a class/workshop for your organization (or group of friends).