All tagged creativity
When creative joy feels elusive, how do you discover it again? It's a recurring challenge to keep your practice alive, vibrant and engaging. Sometimes it feels like all is lost forever, yet I’ve discovered that creativity needs activation, not through thinking but in the doing. When you let your hands lead you, your heart and mind get activated and eventually join together in joyful creating.
Fifty years ago Albania’s paranoid dictator, Enver Hoxha had hundreds of thousands of bunkers built throughout his country. Two of these have been transformed into Bunk’Art museums where art gives voice to the unspeakable so that healing can happen. I think of the term ‘bunker down’ when I imagine creating space and time to dream the future forward as a catalyst for change.
The creative process can be addictive and like any addiction has its highs and lows. Yet turning up for yourself in small ways eventually gives you ‘something to write home about’ even if it is only that you made something for yourself to enjoy.
Beginning a new project can feel daunting. Where to start? For me it’s what I call creative chaos time, where ideas tumble around until I can find a single thread to follow. It’s a time of experimentation, trying out materials and methods until the project begins to fall into some kind of cohesive state.
Perseverance is not necessarily a quality you would think you need when it comes to being creative. Yet finding little creative ‘hacks’ can help keep your enthusiasm buoyant and your art alive through all the messy ups and downs of the creative process.
Creative minds often get bored doing the same thing repetitively. Yet there is comfort in repetition, where tasks are so ingrained they become almost automatic. I’ve discovered that art and exercise are good companions; both can build skills and confidence through incremental, repetitive action taking.
What exactly is it that a buyer is looking for when they make the decision to purchase an artwork? Are they looking for an artwork which is the right colour, size or subject to fit into their home decor? Or are they looking for something else entirely? A fissure of pleasure experienced over and over again each time they look at the artwork in their own home?
No inspiration, lots of procrastination. Endless scrolling on social media. It can feel like the black cloud of creative depression will never lift. Waiting for that day to come is an act of faith.
I continually ask myself about the relevance of art and creativity. Is art relevant and why? I have been trying to understand the nature of duality and finding hope when we witness war. How do we navigate conflict? What role does art in its many forms play in creating the future and changing perceptions?
It takes courage to follow that path less taken when the ‘crazy restlessness’ of creative adventure takes hold. Rather than throwing out your early artworks as ‘ugly ducklings’ they can be viewed instead as creative ‘markers’, leading you on a journey of discovery.
