Episode 3: Creative Spark

Listening to The Artistic Method Podcast

Transcription

“I really should do some paintings. I really need to. Get in the studio and create some paintings.”

Weak sauce! The statements are weak sauce! They inspire nothing, nothing seriously. I should and I need to. Not at all… doesn’t work.

If you have not painted a lot and you wish you could you might say… “I really want to, one day, do some paintings and learn how to paint.”

No, no, not one day, one day never comes. It’s now or never bitches. Even if you have to go to a blank sheet of paper or canvas and squirt paint out on to that support and smear it around with your hand and then walk away, you’ve created something.

You did something, it may suck, but you actually created some art work. You made a mark on a piece of paper or a support of some kind. If you go up to a slab of clay and punch it a couple of good times, you’ve made some marks at sculpture, you’re doing it. You’re working.

There’s so much more power in actually producing something. Anything other than just kicking cans around and needing to, or wanting to get back in the studio one day. I’m going to learn about some artwork that is so weak, and that is the dialogue of failure. And there’s only one type of failure and failure really, truly is not even trying at all.

Other than that. There’s you know, maybe attempts that don’t go as planned or something. Doesn’t turn out the way you wished it would have. If you’re breathing, you’re not a failure unless you’re not trying, not trying at all. You’re not experimenting. You’re not discovering new things. You’re not trying new things.

Not trying. If you’re a musician, you can get on a music app and. Just start mixing some beats with no real plan. If you’re an actor or comedian, you could just stand up and start doing some skits, trying out some different jokes or doing some improv with friends. You could do some journaling, just start writing random bullshit on a piece of paper.

When you do that, when you get into the groove and you are producing something, anything, even shit, it’s going to compound and grow and evolve from there. The time it takes to do that varies from person to person, depending on how bad of a rut you may be in. You may have to drag yourself back to the drawing board 20 times before you start to feel that feeling.

That feeling that you want to create something or see the vision or hear the sounds that you want to express musically, you may have to return over and over, or it may only take one time. And then that spark is ignited. You’re back to creating, you’re inspired or motivated then you’re producing the way you were meant to.

I’m just having fun here. And this is a much as a note to self, as it is a lecture or me telling you how it is or what to do, or that I’ve mastered this. Everyone gets some ruts. I get in a rut. Every artist I know has ups and downs challenges. And it varies from person to person as to how long they stay in the lows and how long we stay in the peaks.

We each have different things that move us and then inspire us and motivate us. And sometimes you can lose touch with that. Have you ever asked the question though, that when you’re blocked, when you feel like you have a creative block, there’s no flow. No desire to perform your craft. What is it? What is it that it’s keeping you from doing what you really want to be doing?

What you could be doing? Had you not been overcome with this feeling that I can’t do this, or I won’t do this. It’s not time. I don’t feel like it. What’s preventing you. What’s preventing that creative spark from igniting. Is it fear? Could fear be blocking you from producing at a level that aligns with your true potential fear?

You could fear the outcome. You could have created something amazing and you fear that you’ll never be able to live up to it again, you could fear that you’re just going to fall flat, that whatever you’re trying to create is not going to turn out the way you want it to.

You could fear that you’ll achieve exactly what you set out to achieve, and you don’t know how to receive that. You don’t know how to go with that flow. There’s many reasons you could feel fear, but generally speaking fear is the reason that we become blocked fear is the block. And removing a creative block is as simple as standing up to the fear to confronting it.

Not necessarily battling with it. You don’t want to battle with your fear because ultimately you’d be battling with yourself. You don’t want to be in conflict with yourself. So there’s some level of acceptance that has to happen.  “Hey, I’m feeling fear. I’m feeling blocked, but I’m okay with that.”

Now there should be a reason behind it, but the reason is not ultimately important, not as important as it just acknowledging that there’s fear acknowledging that there’s a block. That’s primary!  But there could be a reason why there’s fear and it could be a good one. Look at that, honestly. Dissect it and accept that that’s part of yourself, but proceed forward with the fear that fear could be your inspiration and disguise fear could be that feeling.

And we all know that feeling. It’s when you’re having fun. You ar fucking having fun, enjoying what you do, which is to create because you’re an artist.

If you’ve stopped having fun got to look at that. Why have you stopped having fun? It could be because you’re doing the same damn thing over and over and over, and it’s getting fucking boring.

You’re tired of it. You’re sick of it. You want to try something different, something new and exciting. So, if you’re found, when you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, then you need to get lost by doing something you’re not supposed to be doing something you want to do something way off course, off topic.

The artistic method, if there is one isn’t as concrete as the scientific method, the scientific method is the same, every damn time. It’s supposed to be boring. It’s not supposed to be exciting. It’s about mining data and observing the external universe. The artistic method is more exploring inwardly the internal universe, if there is one.

So the scientific method starts off with asking a question is a powerful question. It doesn’t have a known answer. And after you asked the question, you do research to gather data. What is known about this topic that you’ve asked a question about? And after you do your research and gathered data, then you form a hypothesis.

You say, “I think if I do this, it will have this outcome”. And after the hypothesis, you might potentially run an experiment and see what happens. And after you see what happens, you analyze the results and then you compare it to your hypothesis and you’re either right or wrong. If you’re wrong, you might form a new one and do a new experiment, but eventually you’re going to communicate.

Your results, your conclusion. So art can be a little bit like that. Like the scientific method where you ask a question, “what would happen if I do this?”. And then you do some research and then you set up your experiment and you execute it, and then you analyze the results. See if your hypothesis was correct.

And if you check off on the artwork, then you release it to the public to be consumed. And what I mean by that, as you allow it to be viewed, you allow it to be experienced and you can’t control the experience that other people have when observing your artwork. They’re going to have their own unique experience.

That’s completely individual to them, to that person observing I’ve done the abstract artwork where I was painting nothing. There’s no object in the abstract painting. Nothing, no intentions. Just allowing myself to flow with the paint and the canvas and directing it so to speak, but allowing things to happen on their own, the natural way, the natural flow.

But when an observer views that artwork, they see things. The brain is a powerful pattern recognition expert, and it can see things that are there that aren’t really there. It can pick out faces, shapes, animals, objects that I didn’t paint inside the canvas. It just automatically appears. And when that person sees that it’s an emotional connection.

And it’s a discovery for them. It’s almost like an ink blotter test and people see things they want to see. In reality, there’s a confirmation bias. People are looking for what they want to see in reality. And that’s unremovable, it’s an unremovable aspect of the human experience, perceiving reality. We see what we want to see.

An artistic method can grow and evolve over time. Unlike a scientific method. I think science and art could overlap at some place because creativity is needed in science and science is needed in an artwork, but the artistic method can be changed according to your will. You can bend it and. It’s all about your own internal, personal experience with artwork.

It’s about expression. We’re not creating reality. If anything, we’re creating an unreality, we’re creating something that doesn’t exist showing something that doesn’t actually exist. It’s purely personal experience. And in its purest form tells the truth. It tells a personal truth, not the absolute truth.

It’s very important to discern the difference between absolute truth and personal truth. They’re both true. Absolute truth is overall truth. Like the main thing that none of us can see, none of us can see the absolute truth. All we have as human beings is our own personal truth. And that’s all that we can report from what we’ve experienced, what we gathered in this lifetime, what we know to be true based on our experiences and this reality, but because no one knows the absolute truth you have to ask..

Is there an absolute truth? Does an absolute truth exist if no one is aware of it? I’m leaning towards the answer, it’s no, that there is no absolute truth. Everything is so personal, so biased as to personal conditioning, the conditions you have been born into influence the filters in which you see the world around you. The way you see the world is your conditioning.

And you cannot permanently subtract that from your bias and judgment and assumptions of the way things are. If there’s a source of creativity, it’s a giant, massive void or a vacuum. The entire universe is creative. It’s constantly expanding itself and growing infinitely. It’s already infinite and it’s infinity plus one. It’s constantly dividing into itself.

And that multiplies, as we all want as artists to tap into that infinite creative well. And to control it and to own it and make it our own power, but we don’t have that ability. We don’t have the ability to control that. It’s just simply simply available to us. You can work from it, you can merge with it, but you can’t own it.

You can’t control it but you can work with it. One way that artists accomplish this is by removing that personal conditioning just for a limited time. And you can do that through meditation. You can do that through hallucinogenics acid mushrooms, you can do it through suffering. Some people have suffered so deeply that their personal sense of self has been temporarily removed.

And they’re able to see things much clear and access that infinite source of creativity and beautiful things come from that artists like van Gogh suffered horribly. He cut his ear off and sent it to his girlfriend… really fucked off shit, but he was tapped into that creativity through his suffering. But you don’t have to be a van Gogh in order to access that you don’t have to trip on acid either.

All you have to do is temporarily suspend the personal sense of self, which a lot of people struggle with. It’s not as simple as it sounds, but when you’re having fun, that’s exactly what you’re doing. Okay. When you’re having fun, you’re a kid. Again, you’re not this overly defined adult with responsibilities.

You’re coasting. You’re coasting on the wave of creativity, fun and flow. I mentioned earlier, the artistic method can change and grow. It can be completely unique for each artist. There’s no set way of approaching creativity or creating art in general. And there’s so many different forms of art.

There’s so many different ways in which a person could create. And I’m interested in hearing more about other people’s approaches, but what I’m putting together is artistic method templates that people can borrow. You can use and change customize for yourself. But it’s going to be a part of my book that I’m writing in my artists course art courses, basically.

And in my courses, I’ll teach technique like watercolor oil, painting, sculpture drawing, and anything else, but it won’t just be about technique. Or how to use it. We’ll also be exploring the avenues in which you can take yourself out of your own comfort zone and see things from a different angle and put yourself in a different perspective and tap into something that’s already inside of you that you may not be aware of.