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The creative process is a series
of flows going and coming from different directions. Some flows come from
sources of inspiration, go into the artists mind and flow out from the artist
and into the audience. Other flows encircle two fellow artists, while others
come from fans to the artist in the form of support, admiration, or income.
But as far as the act of
creation is concerned the flows that go through the artist sometimes become
problematic and cause difficulties. The artist takes elements they perceive in
the environment and fuses those elements together in unique ways with emotional
aspects of their psychology derived from their philosophy of life. They combine
these factors with the work of their hands using earthly materials to create
aesthetic products.
The flows and the process of
creation form a system and like other systems they can get damaged or break
down. The reasons vary greatly from one artist to another as to why damage or
corruption causes the system to slow or fail altogether. Failing altogether
isn’t as common as slowing or burning out, which is typically caused by the
system running or flowing in one direction for too long.
The body and mind are an
interface that works well in harmony to control the flows from the environment
and the mind as they move through the body. Interestingly, the environment and
the mind are constantly emitting impulses or providing stimuli to the body via
the nervous system, which consists of the electrical circuits that run
throughout the body. The mind is constantly providing orders to various body
parts to get them to do its bidding while the environment is a gigantic theater
of sensory input without end.
This makes the body a conduit
for the flows going in to the mind from the environment and back out to the
environment and from the environment coming in to the mind and back out from
the mind to the environment. The mind can also provide its own stimuli in the
form of inspiration, memories, dreams, and ideas—realms of creativity—which
also flow through the body, out to the environment, and back in again.
All of this flowing and
non-stop sensory input keeps the body in a state of enervation, which causes
damage, slowing, overloading, and burn out. Enervation is simply when the body
feels drained of energy or experiences exhaustion from too much stimulation
(overloaded circuits).
Physical Relaxation
For artists, relaxation is the
only method of reversing the effects of enervation and is therefore a vital
practice to achieve creative longevity. The use of drugs (illegal or
prescription) or hypnotism is no substitute for relaxation. In fact, they are
in themselves additional forms of stimulation and sensory input that would
further agitate the body in a state of enervation. Avoid them if possible when
relaxation is required.
Exchanging one form of
stimulation for another doesn’t constitute relaxation. Like the alcoholic who
exchanges one drug with another by replacing alcohol with nicotine or caffeine,
they are merely switching one addiction for another. Such compromises bring
about new problems and the individual remains an addict for the whole of their
lives without really living drug free.
True relaxation means
refraining from artificial forms of stimulation and sensory input to experience
one’s self and one’s environment in a natural state. When the alcoholic
switches to nicotine or caffeine, they are actually mitigating the effects of
withdrawal by forming new addictions.
For the drug addict, going
through withdrawals is actually gateway to living drug free. Withdrawals are
actually the body’s method of removing drug toxins from its systems so that
they can be expelled as waste products. This along with other therapeutic
techniques is what finally allows a person to eventually arrive at a drug free
existence.
Similarly, the artist can
recuperate from the artificial forms of stimulation and sensory input derived
from the creative process by going through a kind of withdrawal. Because each form
of artistic labor will have its own particular challenges to achieve a state of
relaxation, each type of creative work will have its own form of withdrawal and
will require the invention of strategies to remove the unique stresses that are
specific to that art form.
For the chef, try a period of
eating only pure flavors to help you relax your palate. Eat only raw fruits,
slightly cooked vegetables, and meats or starches with little or no seasonings
at all. Periodic short or prolonged fasts might have the most benefit in the
long term to keep your palate sharp and your digestive system strong.
For musicians, go with a period
of quiet. Because we exclusively use our ears to find, test, and combine new
sounds, it’s our ears that suffer the most stress during the creative process. The
height of tall buildings and mountains will help you rise above the sounds of
cities and human life, while the distance and expanse of wide open spaces in
the desert, grasslands, and bodies of water will bring you peace through extreme
noise reduction.
In contrast, relaxation for the
athlete and dancer might consist of either active or passive processes such as
resting or stretching depending on the movements they are normally performing.
For the illustrator and painter
relaxation might actually pertain to several practices to resolve several
issues. Stretching might work to help relax the effects of restricted and
repetitive movement, while meditation (sitting with eyes closed or in a pitch
black room) will work to de-stimulate the eyes.
Notice how relaxation actually constitutes
sensory deprivation of one or more of the senses. The reason is because what
we’re trying to resolve is enervation (chronic nervous stimulation), which can
only be alleviated with its opposite: sensory de-stimulation or deprivation. Other
approaches for achieving sensory de-stimulation will include noise cancelling
headphones, a sound-proof chamber, meditation, dim lighting, a walk in the
forest, travel to a secluded out-of-the-way location, and extended time in an
empty house or hotel room.
The purpose of all these
approaches is to greatly reduce the amount of stress and stimulation our brains
and bodies undergo during the creative process because the focused effort of
the act of creation almost always comes at the expense of our body and its
needs. But much more important than the purpose is the effect we are trying to
achieve which is resetting or refreshing our senses, so as to return to our
work with “new eyes.”
Mental Relaxation
Resolving enervation is one
component to achieving complete relaxation, while altering mental function will
be the other. Sensory deprivation will help alleviate the accumulated stress collected
in the nerves of the body, but what about the accumulated stresses in the mind.
Just as the creative energy of the body can slow or burn out by flowing in one
direction for too long, so can the function of the mind in the creative
process.
The focused intensity of the
act of creation usually comes at the expense of our minds, especially when our attention
acts in a single capacity for too long. Ironically, sensory deprivation will
not assist the mind in its ability to refresh itself, because the senses are
not its only channels of stimulation. Dreams, creativity, and imagination are
unique aspects to the function of the mind and require a different approach
when trying to achieve mental relaxation. However, the same principle still
applies when dealing with the issue of relaxation.
Just as the flows of the body can
be slowed or burn out by excessive or prolonged sensory input, similarly the activity
of the mind can be slowed or burn out by functioning too long in a single capacity.
If we say that focused intensity and “free thought” are opposite forms of mental
activity, then they can be used to counteract one another. In other words,
structured or guided forms of thinking can be relaxed into more fluid or “free”
forms of thought and vice versa.
Within each artistic discipline
these forms of mental activity express themselves as extremes such as the difference
between the novelist and the poet in writing, the realistic painter and the
abstract painter in painting, the ballet dancer and the modern dance performer
in dance, as well as tonal and atonal or microtonal music in composing.
Sometimes stretching oneself as
an artist can be a form of relaxation if you explore the opposite artistic
extreme than what you’re commonly used to. So if you tend to write in more
structured forms relax by trying your hand at a bit of poetry and vice versa. This
stretching can also be a great benefit because it allows you to find new
material to bring into your normal creative mental function.
Improvisation and accidental
art approaches are also interesting areas to explore because they combine what
we know or have learned with expression without the need to necessarily create
something with structure. In other words, approaching our craft with the skills
we’ve acquired but without the goal of creating structure relax the creative
process by getting us to act more spontaneously. The openness of mind required
with this approach slackens the desire for creative outcomes to turn artistic
effort into a relaxing activity.
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