Heartsong Studio

 

Are you truly creative ?

Do you feel like you’re not very creative in the work you do ?

Do you suspect that it is others who originate all the good ideas, and you just “borrow” from their work ? When you need to take the lines from a model or photo of the subject you want to illustrate, do you feel pangs of guilt ? Or do you just guess from memory ?

This can be a touchy subject for many artists, including me. If I want to see exactly how a hand appears from a certain angle in a particular pose, I might use a model. Or if one isn’t handy (pun intended), I might use a mirrored reflection of my own hand. Am I really being originally creative, when I use a photo, or drawing from which to take the forms I need, or am I stealing ?

What is creativiy anyway ?

Can a mere mortal create something completely new, out of thin air ? Do only some people have ideas, face problems, dream, live in the real world, and breathe air ? Isn’t everything already in existence ? It is said that everything inside and outside us was created by the One, by Divine Essence. A deep respect for this need not tie our hands though.

“There is nothing new under the sun.”

Except to a little child. To him everything is brand new. Remember how you learned to speak your mother tongue ? It was by trial and error, with practice, copying, borrowing from the speech of your family, until your speech gradually became uniquely your own.

You may sound similar to your mother or brother, but there are many individual traits which are unique to you. Think of voice printing for security, more individual than fingerprints.

Exactly the same thing happens when you make images. First you borrow from nature, photos, or dreams. Then you practice with trial and error. (What you deem “error” is uniquely yours too.)

You no more created the original forms you borrowed, than you created the original words you learned to use. In time, you made them your “own”, borrowing heavily not only from your first encounters, but also from all your life’s experiences so far.

But hey, can’t we create another person, an infant ? Or, can we ? Not alone. We only, potentially contribute one half the seed to grow a fetus.

Sure, it grows inside the mother’s body for about the first 276 days, and it is born in a tumultuous act, but there’s still lots of growing left to do. And I doubt if anyone has the choice of which one of the billions of sperm will be the one. We can “only” take part in the process.

None of these examples can be construed as plagiarism, or theft though. Even when the intention is to steal images, even the most expert art forgers can’t fool everyone all the time. Art forgery is a highly skilled and therefore rare profession.

This business of stealing vs. originating appears to be a bit of a red herring.

You cannot create anything totally original, nor can you make anything without changing it with part of yourself. Often, in art colleges, students practice intentionally copying the style of a master, but to learn about how they worked.

Even an artist’s rendering of a picture of an original Picasso, is an original in its own right.

We aren’t machines.

We can’t help but add our own spin to the language we speak. That’s why they’re called living languages. They change over time with use by billions of people, and grow in power.

When we speak, we don’t just express ourselves, we also contribute something to the world and the future. Some tiny speck of energy is launched round the world. Literally.

Just so, we can’t help but add our juice to the images we employ. Everything we create, whether a child, a piece of art, a garden, a meal, a book, a fence, a math solution, a finger painting are all filtered through us.

Though it boggles the mind, it is true that when a butterfly flaps its wings in China, it influences salmon spawning in the Great Bear Rainforest ! 

Is originality a requirement for making “real” art ? Not at all. It’s a crippling expectation. Requiring yourself to be totally original is to stay focussed on you, the artist.

By learning to access your heart, you can focus on interacting with your subject from within yourself, so that the process becomes a dance, a relationship.

And this act is original every time.

Freshness is a requirement for meaningful art, would be a more useful answer.

This process of interaction to discover something new, can result in a discovery about yourself as well.

Marc Chagall was asked if he attended synagogue, to which he answered: “My work is prayer.”

In the process of making anything, a person not only illuminates and illustrates his inner life, but moves beyond personal expression to make something which stands on its own integrity.

Rest assured that your images can’t help but be rendered original the moment they spring from your heart.

Just as you speak your unique verbal language freely, so you can speak in your visual language with passion and assurance.

“It is in the process of giving birth to something which stands on its own, that the artist contacts a reality outside his/her subjective life and moves into the transcendent.” (Peter London)

“Go forth and multiply !” Well, at least create with a clear conscience.

 

Celeste Varley
“Oh ! for a horse with wings.” Shakespeare
Let our hearts sing and take flight !

http://www.heartsongstudio.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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