creative personality: Demons or G-d’s angel?

Rachel Christine Nowicki’s “The Deceiver” at Audio Sparks for Art

Driven. Driven. Is it demons or G-d’s angel? The artist wakes at 3:00 p.m. Heart pounding, head throbbing, like an electric kick drum. BUM-bum-bum. BUM-bum-bum. “I should go back to sleep,” our man reasons. “A few minutes of wide-awake clarity will push me forward more than an hour in blurriness.”

Driven. DRIVEN. BUM-bum-bum. BUM-bum-bum. “You have to work now! You have projects to move forward! Your day job starts at 8:00 a.m. Get up and go!,” chants the pressing low voice, raspy like a grunge guitar. No nurturing here.

It is the voice of the Deceiver. It draws the weary artist from his bed into tortured work even as our painting’s single cruel eye draws us back into a purple hell, a Satanic morass.

What is the source of this demanding energy that compels the artist, even against his will, to conceive and then struggle to birth new work? Is it insidious? Destructive? Nurturing? Illuminating?

Perhaps the creative drive which saturates the artistic personality is all of these things. If this Drive, this Energy, calls the shots, then we are tortured, suffering, martyrs for our art. We have accepted the yoke of the Destroyer, the Deceiver.  But perhaps we can harness and manage this Wild Horse, through awareness, self-discipline, Faith. Attach saddle and wings to this willful Stead, and soar in the heavens as upon Pegasus! Celebrate, be joyful, even ecstatic, for now you are partnering with the Artist, the Creator!

spark on!

midisparks

 

creative personality: The Creative Drive

Lolita offering prayer at this holy time of year

At this special time of year, Lolita tries to make some special effort to connect with her Creator, with her partner in creative life, and to offer thanks for all the gifts given her (including Deuce!) .

Lolita became particularly aware recently that her artistic gifts can be for a blessing or a curse.  One of these gifts, the inherent drive of the artist to create, actually made Lolita a little sick this month.

What happened?  Well – she commenced a short project around the beginning of December.  The idea was to create about a minute of music for a lovely tree landscape of Pennsylvania artist David Bottini.  Bottini’s works masterfully apply light’s subtle effects on subjects and this painting was no exception to the rule.  The work, entitled “Sparkling Summer Morning” featured morning light sparkling and glistening off of tree leaves.

Sparkling Summer Morning

As with all projects, Lolita took some time thinking about what she wanted to accomplish, the feeling she wished to convey, the harmonic and melodic vocabulary she would use.  And then she proceeded to execute, with baby steps, her carefully laid plans.  During this execution phase of the artist’s work, the commitment to the project deepens.  And as the connection to the work deepens, an urgency to bring the work to completion develops.

This sense of urgency to complete creative work is hardwired  into the artistic personality.  It is an emotion which benefits from a little management.  In the case of our beloved Composer of Music for Art, there was a little mismanagement during this particular project that created some uncomfortable stress.  Coupled with the natural urgency Lolita was feeling about her composition for the Bottini work, she was under some greater than usual pressures at her day job, and also with issues respecting the holiday season and social relationships.  It might have behooved Lolita to catch her breath, to acknowledge that the project would not finish so quickly.  Instead she pushed herself hard, became stressed out about the pace of the project’s completion, and had to take a day off to finish the piece.

Her composition did finish more quickly, and with a decent result – but residing in the work, sadly, is a tension, a hard quality, which is not so consonant with the gentle character of the painting.

Talking over this experience in the last few days with Deuce, it occurred to Lolita that she might have stayed on the creative wave of this project for a few more days, to stay with the urgency another week if necessary, to allow her experience of this project to integrate and flow with the overall experience of her life.

As a seasoned artist, you have come to grips with the challenge of reconciling the powerful impulse to complete creative work with the realities of life’s daily demands.  Beyond this, you have actually come to understand the deeper connections, the hidden relationships between the external events currently driving your life and the creative work in which you are currently engaged.

If we can enjoy the discovery of these hidden relationship between experience of mundane life and our creative life, we can better channel our creative impulse, endure the pressure, the sense of urgency, for whatever time is necessary, and thus sit and live with our projects for the duration necessary to allow a full gestation.

And rather than becoming sick, we become stronger – stronger individuals, stronger artists.

spark on!

midisparks

 

Creative Cycle: Isolation

There is an important artist – lives across the river from Deuce and Lolita – by the name of Chris Mackie.  Chris is extremely versatile and produces in a variety of genres – including abstract, celebrity portrait, and figurative.  One of the themes that Chris has developed in a number of works is that of man walking alone, very small in a big and sometimes foreboding world, bent with the struggle, but not broken – pushing heroically on.  You can enjoy browsing Chris’ works at his professional site on Facebook.  voici le “link” http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4851282519723&s

This experience of the lonely struggle is a familiar one to the artist.

After all the study, all the formal influence and learning from the master, and all the informal influences of a lifetime, we put all of that aside, and dig deeply within ourselves to discover how it has all integrated and we pull out something new that is uniquely from the self.  And more often than not, we need to do that on our own, alone, in isolation.

Reconciling with another round of self-imposed isolation is part of the commitment process that marks the very beginning of the artist’s creative cycle.  Even in collaborations, like rock bands, where it seems there is a spontaneous group create – much of what happens in that group session is the result of what individual musicians brought to the table from their own hours of creative solitude.

Lolita, a social girl, always needs to push past a natural reluctance to take a break from her beloved Facebook, Twitter, not to mention her lovers, Lizard King, and others, for the sake of getting into the work of project conception and initial execution.  But she is reminded by Deuce, surprisingly the more spiritual of the two, that there is a very special bond with the “silent” Partner in these initial stages.  The Creator of the Universe partners with the artist in Her ongoing renewal of the world, and She holds the artist in Her arms when he accepts his fate, his destiny, to make sacrifices for the sake of creating something new – something that will bring more light to the world.

So our blessed Composer of Music for Art once again accepts the challenge, renews her commitment to creative life generally, and to a new project specifically – and begins to THINK!

In your evolution through many iterations of the creative cycle, you have come to appreciate the special bond you feel with the Creator at that very initial point when you once more pick up the yoke and voluntarily bear the necessary “exile” from the world for the sake of creating something new.  And you can look forward to those moments in the endgame – when it will be all about sharing, and celebration, and rejoining your communities with a new gift for them!

spark on!

midisparks

 

creative life: setbacks

Lolita has been working, slaving, for over a year to refine and implement her concept of a website which features modern art and customized audio.  Image by image, composition by composition, relationship by relationship, with artists and composers, she has built.  And after an intensive drive last Spring to optimize the site more effectively – miracle of miracles- she began seeing visits to her website.  The difference between 0 and 1 hit was an occasion of great joy.  Needless to say when she steadily saw 5 hits a day, then 10, then in recent months 15-20, she felt confident that the site was moving in the right direction.

Suddenly, in the last few days, visits to her website dropped down to a paltry 5 a day. Needless to say, our Girl’st first reaction was “I’ve done something to the site.  I have broken the site.  I am responsible for this ‘failure’.”

For the artistic personality, somewhat obsessive by nature and inclined to self-criticism, it is typical and understandable that the first reaction to setbacks will be some rather harsh self-confrontation – the harshness coming from our frustration, our disappointment in a situation which blocks our progress, demands frequently a detour of time and energy.  There is a great potential at this point for emotional tailspin, for panic, for random “clutching at straws” in an urgent and obsessive quest for the fix.

But our Girl has learned over the years to step outside of her “box” at these moments.  She recalls role models from points in her life who exhibited particularly strong qualities of patience, of cool reason.  And she allows herself to sit for a day or so, as long as necessary, with the hard feelings associated with setback.  She keeps petting Deuce, nurturing her dear Spaniel muse, she keeps focused on what is going right, and she allows herself to regain emotional and intellectual equilibrium.

As she arrives back in a more balanced state, she is prepared to take the baby steps – ask the basic questions – do the basic research – necessary to uncover the issue underlying her setback.

You have learned to sit for a while with the hard feelings associated with creative setbacks.  You have learned to recognize these setbacks as opportunities for new learning – as points of unexpected revelation which ultimately  take you further down the road than you otherwise would have found yourself.  You see the hand of the Creator, hear Her voice, feel His participation most strongly at these moments of clear-headed problem solving.

Your focus on the positive, your step-by-step approach to problem solving, has strengthened you as an artist – increased your capacity for creative thought and successful efficient project execution.  Perhaps most importantly, your bond with your Partner has been strengthened, and you enjoy the peace only available to those who find positive connections with the Creator.

spark on!

midisparks

 

creative process: ready to learn

Our Composer of Music for Art, Lolita, finds herself prepared to embark on a new project this morning.  Although not as essential to the nurturing of her creative soul as her composing, she derives great satisfaction from developing her website, www.audiosparksforart.com.  The site seeks to pair custom audio with for-sale contemporary art, to create a unique and deep experience of the art for the viewer, and hopefully to transform a viewer into an art buyer!

Recently Lol discovered that once the viewer clicks on the link to the artist’s selling site, that viewer has effectively left her own audiosparks website.  Although the viewer can always “back arrow” into her website again, the more efficient solution to keeping viewers in her site is to insert code which opens the links to artist sites in new windows.

So among several “to-do’s” with respect to polishing up her website this week, our Girl needs to learn the code which makes links open as new windows.

This requirement for some new learning in connection with new projects and problem solving has been typical in Lolita’s creative process, and especially at the outset of her creative cycle.  And she has come to understand, over time, some of the issues involved with engaging successfully in new learning.  On top of the list of issues is that of readiness.  In the case of the relatively straight-forward bit of learning needed for the problem she is facing now, the challenge is not so much discovering the correct code, but rather having the time and the will to incorporate that code globally on her website.  So readiness in this case is mostly wrapped up with the availability of time to execute (project execution).

Readiness in our Girl’s situation also involves her facing, at least partially, a requirement for a more significant bit of learning, which may involve an even greater amount of time, both in the study and the execution.  As her site expands, she needs some more efficient way to make global revisions.  Every time Lolita goes through this routine of making global revisions one page at a time, she is coming closer to readiness to seek out, with some study, that global solution, which she believes involves something called “libraries”.

So part of the resistance to new learning is that we typically open up “a can of worms”.  We may find a workable solution, perhaps a stopgap.  But with the requisite self-honesty involved in true learning, we inevitably come face to face with the deeper levels of learning required for the most efficient, masterful solutions.  This learning will take more effort, more time, will offer more resistance and create more frustration.

Having gone around this block a few times in your creative life, you remind yourself regularly that the quality of final results stand in direct positive relationship to the quality of the creative inputs.  Armed with that knowledge, you dive with all your creative passion into some challenging learning this morning!

spark on!

midisparks

 

 

Creative Life: Vacation Tips from the Spaniel Muse

Deuce had some concerns about Lolita’s vacation plans

Lolita, our hardworking Composer of Music for Art, has been taking that long walk in the dark (groping in the dark) lately with a new project.  The challenges associated with these points in the creative cycle are compounded for her because she cannot necessarily progress as quickly as she might otherwise because of her day job.  She has really been busting her tail at work so she can feel good about leaving at 4:30 each day and have nothing on her mind other than sweet anticipation of the precious moments in her evening when she will be productively engaged in her project.

Nevertheless, her frustration level has been rising as of late, because she is ready technically now to move projects along more quickly, to grow her creative business more aggressively on several fronts.  Deuce, her loyal Spaniel muse, has noticed of late Lolita’s rather heightened anxiety level and suggested she put in for a vacation.

She did.  In fact, she left at lunch on Thursday – the bold girl – for a glorious 6 business days of pure Lolita for Lolita.  Needless to say, on their Thursday afternoon walk, Deuce expressed some concern about her fantasies of trips to Florida, the Netherlands, or points significantly west and out of the way of encroaching hurricanes.  He gently suggested to Lolita the most advantageous approach to a satisfying vacation might be more about diving deeper into her creative life, in all its richness.

To that end, Deuce suggested they start off with a longer walk than usual on Friday morning.  These walks are always a source of inspiration for Lolita, an opportunity first off to get out of her own skin a bit and be sensitive to Deuce’s Spaniel needs – sniffing, business, squirrel terrorizing, making new dog and people friends.  As Lolita  observes Deuce, she relates his involvements to her own creative process.  His sniffing, an infinite source of pleasure for him, is her own infinite reaching for more subtle detail in her work, for a stronger technical execution, for greater endurance to work more, for the discovery of fresh subjects, styles, approaches.

So this longer walk with Deuce really was a brilliant start to Lolita’s vacation.  Rather than allowing the vacation to steer her off course completely from her valuable creative routines and values, she used the extra time to reaffirm and deepen her commitment and involvement in her process.  And she struck right at the core of that process – which is her daily morning walks with Deuce, engaging in creative thought.

All great, if you are on vacation.  But perhaps you are not.  Your devotion to your work, your focus, the sacrifice you make, creates powerful energy for your precious daily moments of focus on creative projects.  And you use vacations and other unexpected windows of free time, to dive deeper into your creative existence, into your process.  For this is the “relaxation” for you – the nurturing of your creative soul, the freedom to engage more fully in creative thought and the execution of your conception.

spark on

midisparks

 

Creative Process: When a monster emerges

Do you know that great old black and white horror flick “Frankenstein”?  Well – Dr. Frankenstein really had the best of intentions.  He sought to put together a human in the lab.  Not so different than modern day cloning in some ways.  You gather up the best parts, screw them all together, and voila! un homme.

Unfortunately, during the final assembly phase, Dr. Frankenstein’s faithful assistant reached for the wrong brain.  Instead of that Harvard man’s cranium, he nabbed that of the ex-con.  Well – the result was less than spectacular – as Frankenstein’s noble creation turned out to be an unstable monster.

Perhaps, we could postively spin the moral implications of Shelly’s tale.  First off, the whole notion that we have full control over anything – well, you might consider tossing that out the window.  Even as we plan carefully how to execute our well considered vision and concept, we are always working somewhat in the dark.  Our emotions are subtly directing our decision making.  Our environment is subtly or not so subtly inspiring or frustrating.  Our physical resources, internal and external, are not perfectly stable – quality waxes and wanes.

And in the end, yes – perhaps we end up with a “monster” – something very unlike our original conception. On the other hand, if we stay aware, open and accepting to the possibility that something else, either slightly or radically different from what we had envisioned, is emerging – if we embrace the unpredictable in the evolution of our work – we sometimes discover in the end that something startling, fresh, unexpected and excellent has emerged.  Embracing this fact of our inability to control the progress and direction of our work fully, for some, is a recognition that we are not alone in our creative process – rather we are in a partnership with the Creator.  Regardless of your position on that – cultivating an ability to flow with your work – to be open to a left hand turn when you thought you were turning right – may fill your creative life with a greater richness and sense of wonder.  Each day, through our work, the Universe has new Wisdom to share with us, in our unique roles as artists in the world.

 

creative life: The Dog is Scratching Himself Bloody

Don’t worry – he’ll be okay.  Our Girl loves her dog – just has not had the time and presence of mind to deal fully with his situation.  And maybe for some good reasons.  Despite all of her efforts to maintain a healthy routine in support of the daily creative process, to value and cultivate balance so that her internal and external environments are conducive to positive thought, to relaxed and deliberate execution – despite all the long term benefits of healthy habit and balance – sometimes our Composer of Music for Art just needs to go over the edge.

What does that mean – going over the edge?  It means we have arrived at a juncture so critical, at a conception or technical or personal breakthrough so significant, that we must pursue it immediately, intensively, at all costs, to lock it in, to claim full ownership over it.

Last Friday our Lady had to drive to mom and dad’s house.  Time to pay the few times a year respect to her folks.  So, a good time for sitting in the car for 6 hours with a scratching dog and thinking the big thoughts.  And the big thoughts, by the way, might find some inspiration from an old standard in the motivational literature, made into an audiobook, called “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. http://sellcasa.com/think-and-grow-rich.pdf  It is highly recommended it for anyone who is interested in maximizing their creative and productive potential.

And this is very much what our Girl was about during the car ride – thinking in some detail, and in critical fashion, about just what it would take to make her art website a happening place.  the revelation for her occurred toward the end of the last of 4 CDs, where the discussion was about that “mountain” in front of you that constitutes a dealbreaking obstacle, a hurdle, a stumbling block.  All of us have fears, limitations, hangups, that can be surprisingly debilitating in terms of personal or commercial success.  So she was basically thinking honestly about what the “mountains” were, for her.  Well – fear of criticism, of rejection, unwillingness to share and work a project as a team.  laziness in terms of careful planning, in terms of setting definite goals and deadlines and working hard to meet those goals and deadlines.

and the result of this 6 hours or so of concentrated thought on the personal “mountains” resulted in some sincere determination to climb over or blast through, and to make the website project work.

this is one of those not so frequent turning point moments which call for a little extended care and feeding – perhaps at a greater expense than usual to everything else.  so while the dog is scratching frantically, and physical aches and pains are not being addressed, and your girlfriend/boyfriend is waiting, and the lawn is a jungle approaching the front door – we ignore all – and pound away at the project under the new rules of the game – i.e.  obsessive single mindedness.

there is a teaching that we should not be overly concerned with the negative impact on physical health that may result from intensive application to good works – in the realm of deed and study.  Though moderation in almost all things is generally recommended, on a regular basis, nevertheless you are made to create – to do work – to produce new things for this world.  you were not primarily made to be beautiful, or comfortable, or at ease, although we can value all those things as part of how we nurture ourselves long term.  but short term – sometimes, throw it all out the window and pound away at your work like there is no tomorrow and like it is life itself – because it is.

and you will sleep well tonight and the balance will come again – your girlfriend and boyfriend will welcome you and you will be full of great energy to share.  oh yes – there will still be a bit of flesh left on your dog – and you will figure that out too.

spark on (and on)

midisparks

 

Creative Life: Valuing the Mundane

Just what does it mean to lead the “creative” life.  In part, it speaks to how we respond to our daily experience – and perhaps especially to our mundane experience – the interactions at our day job, the immediate requirements of house and home, family and friends, self-nurturing.

Every day has an obvious blessing for us, and perhaps also something hard which may also be a blessing, but which we must digest and convert through some considerable effort.  The artistic personality not only is cognizant of obvious and less obvious daily blessings, but integrates the  experience of these blessings into her daily moments of application to her art.

Our patient and humble Composer, our Lady of Music for Art, has not yet arrived at that point in her artistic career where she can hang up the day job.  So she grins and bears up, and finds ways to appreciate the relationships, the demands, the feedback she may benefit from during this period in her process that she must commit to an 8:00 – 4:30 office job.  One of the more challenging aspects of that commitment is her response to the power politics of office life.  She is not one for participating in this kind of struggle for dominance, and as a result, she has found herself, more than once, the recipient of the dominant behaviors of others.  In her early years, she whined and cried “victim, victim am I!”  But as she matured, she saw some benefit from these experiences of aggressive behaviors in the office.  Firstly, she tapped in to a sense of humility – she recognized her limitations in this realm of the power play.   She found these experiences to be opportunities to connect more deeply with herself, to be more accepting of herself, and to remind herself of where her values and priorities lay.  And beyond that even, she found the capacity to encourage the power players themselves, to recognize that this behavior was essential to who they were and to even help them process in a positive way their need for dominance and recognition in the office.

You have been given a unique gift and responsibility.  It is your task to look at the world through a special interpretive lens on loan to you from the Creator.  With this lens you see what is inside, you see motivations, you see themes, you see continuity and discontinuity.  And beyond that, your mind conceptualizes this input, transforms concept into concrete, and brings something new into the physical world which illuminates the way for others.

Even though we find the greatest peace, the greatest sense of connection during those precious moments of the day when we are engaged directly in our creative projects, nevertheless we appreciate more and more that we are walking, or can be walking, every minute our creative life.  And this awakening in you will be a great comfort to you, and will create great continuity and satisfaction for you in your artist’s walk through each day.

spark on!

midisparks

 

Creative Process: Decisions Decisions

Our dear Composer of Music for Art does not find much time for reading.  She is committed to staying in touch with the world, however, and tries to keep up with her Time magazine.  She came across an article many months ago that discussed the brain’s decision making process.  The upshot of the article was the the anxiety and hand-wringing we occasionally (or more than occasionally) go through with respect to making the final “cut” is rather a waste of energy.  In fact, studies have shown, according to the article, that whatever choice we make between two reasonable options becomes the “right” choice for us.  In other words, having made the decision, the brain settles in and accepts that decision as the right one.  In other words, choose your ground and stand your ground and you will be fine.

In every phase of our project work, we are involved in this process of choosing between creative options.  If we have committed to composing, for example, an African groove, the choice between two African drums for the heart of the groove is not so critical.  We can make our selection and run with it.  That drum we choose will soon be planted in our brain as the “right” drum.

This willingness to take the leap more quickly, when faced with two reasonable choices, has a tremendous advantage in terms of our overall creative process.  We can produce more quickly.  We can stay firmly in touch with the overall concept for our work.  We can more easily find that creative zone where the Creator’s energy is flowing through us, where our spontaneous efforts are yielding the most amazing results.

You think deeply and carefully about your work.  On this strong foundation you evolve a range of valid options for the execution and detail of your project.  You can choose with confidence from this menu, as you would explore the menu of a fine restaurant.  And like the entree you choose, you will savor your creative choice all the more for flowing with it, committing to it more quickly and more fully, and discovering how effectively your choice integrates into your overall project as a result of your strong confidence.

spark on!

midisparks