Saturday, February 2, 2013

The Overflow of Creativity: Why Artists Need to Find New Areas to Conquer, New Worlds to Explore

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Introduction

In this article, I want to discuss some aspects about the nature of creativity and how it relates to just one sample set of creative endeavors – acting and music. These 2 art forms have been closely allied since early human civilization and have remained so up to today. Because music effectively communicates emotions and acting is essentially the act of performing emotions through the recitation of lines and portraits of body language, it’s only natural that acting and music would form an artistic bond. 

The Cycle of Creation


Creativity is commonly viewed as an inborn or developed faculty of imagination, guided by a purpose, and fused with a skill such as painting, music, or writing to communicate that purpose. Distinctly, imagination in action is viewed as the creation, maintenance, acquisition, destruction, and improvement of some portion of the physical universe according to the way one desires to see or change it. Imagination and creativity are both part of a chain reaction that originates in the soul of an artist and manifests in the physical universe through art. A more complete chain or cycle of creation might look like this:

Knowledge or Skill > Perception > Problem > Solution (or Invention) > Execution > Creation (Production) > Expansion > Conquest > Domination (or Mastery), repeat cycle with New Knowledge or Skills.

To help illustrate this point I’d like for you to think of creativity in terms of molten lava. Lava flows where it must and when it meets an obstacle it can go through the obstacle, but it can also go around, go over, or do a combination of these things to achieve its purpose, which is to continue its flow. Just like molten lava, creativity cannot be contained, it must continue its flow, and it does so by seeking new conquests. 

The Nature of Emotions in Acting and Music

Because acting and music are rooted directly in the conveying of emotions, it makes sense that actors would turn into musicians and musicians turn into actors. This brings us to one fascinating aspect about creativity which is that creativity cannot be contained. When a talented individual has nurtured access to their creative spirit, their creativity overflows and finds new areas to conquer, new worlds to explore. That’s why the actor turned musician or musician turned actor are interesting examples of artistic or creative overflow. They exemplify this quality of the nature of creativity where in human action it permeates an area, conquers it, and overflows into new areas to find additional channels for artistic expression. Other examples of this quality of creativity overflowing into new areas are the athlete turned musician, actor, or businessperson; the soldier turned politician; the actor turned writer; the author turned radio talk show host, the wife and mother who becomes a small business owner, and many others. 





But what exactly is the relationship between our emotions, creativity, and imagination? In my estimation, creativity and imagination are static functions in the human mind in that they are not animated by their own power. Emotion, on the other hand, is a motive power because the word itself denotes bioelectrical or thought energy in motion. Our thoughts, through the lens of our world view, actually play the primary and originating role in this chain reaction.  [You can read more about this topic in my article, “Words in Songwriting and their Power as Emotional Triggers (Part 1).”] 
 
So now armed with this information let’s make our statement clear. The role our emotions play in relationship to creativity and imagination is as a motive power, which animates or puts into motion the creativity and imagination we’ve been endowed with. Moreover, our emotions activate the genius that is possible through the energizing of our personal reservoir of creativity. Just as in the example I gave before comparing creativity to the flow of molten lava, it’s the flow of our emotions that circulates creativity and imagination into our thought processes giving rise to all of the wonderful inventions the human mind has been able to conceive. 

The Magnitude of Creativity

Everyone on Earth possesses the faculties of creativity and imagination– some greater and others less – within themselves, so that all people exercise them to some degree. Aside from the degree with which some people exercise them, artists, musicians, and even scientists cultivate these faculties to the highest levels they can possibly achieve in order to discover their usefulness and possibilities when applied to some area of life, art, or study. The greater the creative mind, the more creative endeavors they seek to conquer, and the greater the magnitude their creations facilitate change in society and the world.

Creativity Unbounded by Time and Space

Another important point is that the nature of creative action is such that time and space cannot constrain creativity. In other words, creativity is unbounded by time and space. For example, from the storytelling traditions of early human cultures, to the playwriting that grew around the theaters of Athens with the birth of Greek tragedies, as well as the diatonic flutes made from the bones of animals 10,000 years ago, acting and music as manifestations of creativity always seem to survive the passage of time and escapes extinction.

Although we know that many artistic traditions have been eliminated in their pure forms, their influence still lives on. This is one way creativity is unbounded by time and space. Human nature provides for the preservation of ideas and art forms through various types of communication, so that even though a culture may disappear from the planet, remnants of that culture fuse with other cultures to change or create new cultures. Some anthropologists, archeologists, and even biologist share the view that human life is nothing more than a vehicle for DNA – the genes. But I would go a step further and state that human life is not only a vehicle for DNA, but also for knowledge, including the arts.

Another way how creativity seems to be independent of time and space is that from whichever way you examine it, creativity seems to be one of those things about the human mind or spirit which exists outside of this universe. In this universe the products of creativity are readily apparent, but creativity itself permeates everything and originates nowhere except in the mind of sentient beings. Perhaps it’s the mind that originates elsewhere and creativity and imagination come and go with it. This is another topic for another day.



Conclusion

So in conclusion here’s a list of important recommendations for you creative people out there in connection with the ideas I’ve presented here. 

1) First of all, it’s not the amount of creativity you possess that makes you a great creator, but rather the amount you use. In my opinion it’s so much better to develop your full creative capacity instead of just settling for ½ of a huge capacity. Fifty percent of a huge capacity may yield massive results but you’re still not giving it your all.

2) Remember what creativity and imagination are and try to access these areas of your mind so that they increase in their capacity for artistic action. Also, keep in mind the role emotions play in activating creativity and putting it into circulation in our thought processes. Remember the molten lava description.

3) Seek opportunities where your world view is either challenged or supported through your experiences. The emotions are manufactured through a combination of your world view and experiences and it’s through these experiences where we’ll stretch ourselves in the range of emotions we are able to feel. Beware of fear. Fear is a paralyzing emotion that counteracts the work of the imagination and prevents the flow of our emotions.

4) Be open to new opportunities for creative expression because they are channels for communicating your passion for your art or craft with an expanded audience. These opportunities offer you new ways to think about your approach, method, and techniques for generating artistic effects and communicating them to others. 

5) Attempt greatness in all that you do artistically. Work hard on increasing the magnitude and impact your creations have on people, societies, and the world. Use all of the resources at your disposal today to make your work last. With the Internet you have an amazing opportunity to play the part of the historian in cataloging your works of art for future generations.


To learn more about specific examples of artistic overflow with some of the artists of today, click here.

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Marc

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