Heartsong Studio

Can you afford to be an artist in this age of global warming, insanely rising gas prices, ever expanding technology, and the constant need to keep on top of your own life’s details in an orderly fashion ?

Has art become a frill for the flaky ?

I was sideswiped by this prejudice recently: “Of course you’d have a problem being organized, because you’re an artist !” It might seem to some that the combination of creativity and orderliness cannot exist in one person at the same time, or that art is an indulgence for after the real work.

In the words of Ursula Franklin, feminist, educator, Quaker, and physicist: “Peace is not just the absence of war, but the presence of justice.”

In the same way, effective art of any kind is not just the absence of chaos, but the presence of organized inspiration. The artist needs an organizing principle to do justice to an inspired expression before it can really come to life.

I’ve been annoyed by flaky plumbers who just winged it without method, and I’ve been deeply touched by the work of artists who must have been highly organized in order to make a successful career in such a dog-eat-dog world.

Were the prehistoric painters of those lively animals on cave walls organized or flaky ?

Their lives were probably taken up just staying alive, hunting for food, and shelter. We know they hadn’t developed written language yet, and I doubt they made the drawings for decorative purposes. If there were any flaky cave persons, I imagine they didn’t survive long enough to make cave drawings for any reason.

Surely we are all born with the potential for all the Qualities, including creative expression !

But then it follows that we also have the inborn capacity for every other quality too - to be organized, flaky, destructive, evil, merciful, loving, etc.. We don’t necessarily develop every potential.

Anyone who relies heavily or exclusively on technique and methodology is probably using their mind to make things happen. If you have learned how to access your spirit reliably, this doesn’t mean that you throw aside technique and method. It just means that you lead with your heart - your inner knowing, instead of with your mind.

Creativity, if it is to be innovative or original, is by definition unknown at the start.

The mind is a wonderful tool and very good at what it does best, but the mind does not handle the unknown very well at all. So, how can anyone create with only their mind ?

Once you have witnessed, experienced, felt what wants to be expressed through you, then your skilful mind can help you find ways of manifesting this inspiration, using techniques and methods, if you like.

Using the mind alone to make visual images results in dead things, art without underlying heart, no matter how skillfully it’s rendered. Just winging it without any organization results in a dog’s breakfast - chaos.

You don’t have to be flaky to be plugged into an infinite source of creative inspiration. Start with a good dose of spiritual connection, and add some appropriate skills to manifest this spirit, and you have real art.

Sufis have a saying: “Take in the world with your heart, and then understand it with your mind.”

Successful artists are spiritually tuned into inspiration, and regularly apply the order and perspiration needed to manifest this spirit.

The art work that lies inside you waiting to have life breathed into it could offer that heartwarming touch that makes all the difference in your life. It could be the very inspiration that triggers a solution to global warming or violence, to the need for connection or compassion in others who see it.

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“All children are born artists,” said Picasso.

The problem is we grow out of it - or more often we’re educated out of it, as we grow up. We educate kids progressively from the waist up, then we concentrate on the head and slightly to one side.

Does creativity equal academic ability ?

All intelligence tests are geared on the basis that academic ability equals intelligence. In fact, intelligence is a much broader thing. Creativity should have the same status as literacy, but it doesn’t. Most adults are creatively illiterate through no fault of their own.

Why teach Mathematics every day to everyone, but not Dance ?
Why not ? We all have bodies.

Possibly worse than no creative education is an ill-informed kind of art teaching. Well-meaning advice sets up barriers to authentic expression:

>>> That’s a nice picture ! What’s it supposed to be ? <<<

>>> Don’t take art unless you’re going to be an artist. <<<

The trouble with a cheap, specialized education is that you never stop paying for it.

Loads of folks freeze up at the chance to express themselves creatively in a genuine way, because of what they’ve been taught, either by omission, or implication — This is the way to make art.

If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything creative. When they don’t know, kids will take a chance. That’s natural learning, unless they meet with enough failure to humiliate them out of reaching with their natural intelligence.

Too much observation of subject matter can change a creative event from one of spirit to one of mere rendering. Surprise, chance, illusion, personality, audacity, confidence and desire are drown by an overload of knowledge.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge,” said Albert Einstein. “Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

The best thing about human beings is their resilience.

Just think: Shakespeare was in somebody’s English class. . . Rembrandt studied art under somebody. . . It boggles the mind.

If you were one of the creatively wounded as a child, take heart !

Do you make a joke of your inability to draw a straight line ? Would you like to surrender up this past garbage you’ve been saddled with, and start to recover your birthright ?

Here’s something you can do right now on your own to start using the talents you possess.

>>> Schedule some self time alone, for dinking around.

>>> Go outside on a hunt, with nothing special in mind, gazing at natural things with soft eyes, until something calls out and grabs your attention. Never mind why, just nab it.

>>> Keep collecting things which seem to want to be found, until you have a half dozen or so.

>>> Take them to a place which just feels right to you, and arrange them where they seem at the right distance from one another, and each in the best location for itself. Don’t make art or be clever or cute.

>>> Just keep moving the stuff around till you feel it’s okay. You know what okay feels like - you breathe easily, your muscles are relaxed, your senses sharpen, you feel potent, safe, eager - OK.

That’s it.
No big deal.  No searching or tearing your soul for just the correct composition.

When you feel OK, it will be because -

You will feel how the outside of things look corresponds to how the inside of you feels.

What you’re doing here is finding a way to naturally express in the world what is happening to you inside.

This is what art is about -
creating physical metaphors to represent events of the mind and heart.

Later, you might ask yourself these questions about your arrangement:

— If you were to move one item closer to or farther from the others, would that be more “you” or less ?

— If you removed any item from the group, what effect would that have on the whole piece ?

— What would you do to change this work to be more the person you would like to be ?

It was Henry Van Dyke who said: “Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.”

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