Alex Alvis Art

Setting Yourself Up for Creativity - Pt.3

...and that's it.

Well…

....So, how many women's libbers does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer - 37, one to screw it in - and 36 to make a documentary about it.

....How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? The answer - only one, but the lightbulb has really got to want to change....

Oh, there is one - just one - other thing that I can say about creativity.

There are certain conditions which do make it more likely that you'll get into the Open Mode, and that something creative will occur.

More likely… you can't guarantee anything will occur...you might sit around for hours as I did last Tuesday, and ...nothing.

Zilch...bupkis....Not a sausage.

Nevertheless, I can at least tell you how to get yourselves into the Open Mode. You need five things:

One - Space

Two - Time

Three - Time

Four - Confidence

and Five  - a 22 inch waist!

Sorry.  My mind was wondering...I'm getting into the open mode too quickly...

Instead of a 22 inch waist, we need Humor. I do beg your pardon.

Okay, so let's take Space first. 

You can't become playful and therefore creative if you're under your usual pressures, because to cope with them you've got to be in the Closed Mode, right?  So you have to create some space for yourself away from those demands. And that means sealing yourself off.

You must make a quiet space for yourself where you will be undisturbed.

Next - Time. It's not enough to create space, you have to create your space for a specific period of time. You have to know that your space will last until exactly  -say - 3:30 ...and that - at that moment - your normal life will start again.

And it's only by having a specific moment when your space starts, and an equally specific moment when your space stops, that you can seal yourself off from the everyday closed mode in which we all habitually operate.

And I'd never realized how vital this was until I read a historical study of play by a Dutch historian called Johan Huizinga and in it he says "Play is distinct from ordinary life, both as to locality and duration. This is its main characteristic: its secludedness, its limitedness. Play begins and then (at a certain moment) it is over. Otherwise, it's not play."

So.  Combining the first two factors we create an oasis of quiet for ourselves by setting boundaries of space and of time.

Now creativity can happen, because play is possible when we are separate from everyday life.

So, you've arranged to take no calls, you've closed your door, you've sat down somewhere comfortable, you take a couple of deep breaths ...and if you're anything like me, after you've pondered some problem that you want to turn into an opportunity for about 90 seconds...you find yourself thinking:

 "Oh I forgot I've got to call Jim… oh!  And I must tell Tina that I need the report on Wednesday and not Thursday...which means I must move my lunch with Joe...

And Damn! I haven't called St. Paul's about getting Joe's daughter an interview...and I must pop out this afternoon to get Will's birthday present... 

...and those plants need watering and none of my pencils are sharpened and Right! I've got too much to do!

So!  I'm going to start by sorting out my paper clips and then I shall make 27 phone calls and I'll do some thinking tomorrow when I've got everything out of the way."

Because, as we all know, it's easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking.

And it's also easier to do little things we know we can do, than to start on big things that we're not so sure about.

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Labels: Alex Alvis Sculpture, art business, How Many Dogs does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?, John Cleese on Creativity, play, quiet spaces, undisturbed time

Setting Yourself Up For Creativity - Pt.2

Now, about this mood.

I'm working at the moment with Dr. Robin Skynner on a successor to our psychiatry book, Families and How To Survive Them, and we're comparing the ways in which psychologically healthy families function; the ways in which such families function (compared) with the ways in which the most successful corporations and organizations function.

We've become fascinated by the fact that we can usefully describe the way in which people function at work in terms of two modes: Open and Closed.

So what I can just add now is that creativity is not possible in the Closed Mode....

....ok, so

How many doorkeepers....

Closed Mode

By the Closed Mode I mean - the mode that we are in most of the time when at work.

We have inside us a feeling that there's lots to be done and we have to get on with it if we're going to get through it all.

It's an active, probably slightly anxious mode - although the anxiety can be exiting and pleasurable.

It's a mode which we're probably a little impatient, if only with ourselves.  It has a little tension in it...not much humor.

It's a mode in which we're very purposeful, and it's a mode in which we can get very stressed and even a bit manic.  But not creative.

Open Mode...by contrast, the Open Mode, is relaxed… expansive… a less purposeful… in which we're probably more contemplative, more inclined to humor - which always accompanies a wider perspective - and consequently, more playful.

It's a mood in which curiosity for its own sake can operate because we're not under pressure to get a specific thing done quickly. We can play, and that is what allows our natural creativity to surface.

And now, let me give you an example of what I mean:

When Alexander Fleming had the thought that led to the discovery of penicillin, he must have been in the Open Mode. 

The previous day he'd arranged a number of dishes so that culture would grow upon them. On the day in question he glanced at the dishes, and he discovered that on one of them - no culture had appeared. 

Now, if he'd been in the Closed Mode he would have been so focused upon his need for "dishes with cultures grown upon them" that when he saw that one dish was of no use to him for that purpose - he would quite simply have thrown it away.

But thank goodness, he was in the Open Mode...so he became curious about why the culture had not grown on this particular dish. And that curiosity, as the world knows, led him to the light bulb!

I'm sorry.

To...to... penicillin...

Now in the Closed Mode an uncultured dish is an irrelevance.

In the Open Mode, it's a clue. 

Now, one more example.  

At first, I was almost outraged, and then I discovered that he did this intentionally. He mistrusted working under pressure. He would say "We're pressing, we're pressing.  We're working too hard. Relax.  It will come." "

And, says the writer, "Of course it finally always did."

But let me make one thing quite clear.  We need to be in the Open Mode when we're pondering a problem.  BUT - once we come up with a solution, we must then switch to the Closed Mode to implement it.

Because once we've made a decision, we are efficient only if we go through with it decisively - undistracted by doubts about its correctness. 

For example, if you decide to leap a ravine the moment just before take-off is a bad time to start reviewing alternative strategies.

When you're attacking a machine-gun post you should not make a particular effort to see the funny side of what you're doing.

Humor is a natural concomitant in the Open Mode, but it's a luxury in the Closed one.

Now, once we've taken a decision - we should narrow our focus while we're implementing it.  And then after it's been carried out, we should once again switch back to the Open Mode to review the feedback rising from our action - in order to decide whether the course that we have taken is successful.

Or whether we should continue with the next stage of our plan:  whether we should create an alternative plan to correct any error we perceive (in Open Mode).  And then - back into the Closed Mode to implement that next stage, and so on.

In other words, to be at our most efficient - we need to be able to switch backwards and forwards between the two modes.

But. Here's the problem - we too often get stuck in the Closed Mode.

Under the pressures which are all too familiar to us - we tend to maintain tunnel vision at times when we really need to step back and contemplate the wider view.

This is particularly true, for example of politicians.

So, as I say.   Creativity is NOT possible in the Closed Mode.

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Setting yourself up for Creativity

Photo-Art by Terry Wolfinger found on Fink Magazine

You know, when Video Arts asked me if I'd like to talk about creativity I said "no problem." No problem!

Because telling people how to be creative is easy, it's only being it that's difficult.

I knew it would be particularly easy for me because I've spent the last 25 years watching how various creative people produce their stuff - and being fascinating to see if I could figure out what makes folk, including me, more creative.

What is more, a couple of years ago I got very excited because a friend of mine who runs the psychology department at Sussex University, Brian Bates, showed me some research on creativity done at Berkley in the 70s by a brilliant psychologist called Donald MacKinnon - which seemed to confirm in the most impressively scientific way all the vague observations and intuitions that I'd heard over the years.

The prospect of setting down for quite serious study of creativity for the purpose of tonight's gossip was delightful.

Having spent several weeks on it, I can state categorically that what I have to tell you tonight about how you can all become more creative is a complete waste of time.

So I think it would be much better if I just told jokes instead: you know the lightbulb jokes? You know...

How many Poles does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One to hold the bulb, four to turn the table.

How many folksingers does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer - Five.  One to change the bulb and four to sing about how much better the old one was.

How many socialists does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer - We're not going to change it, we think it works.

How many creative art......

You see, the reason why it is futile for me to talk about creativity is that it simply cannot be explained.  It's like Mozart's music or Van Gogh's painting or Saddam Hussein's propaganda. It is literally inexplicable.

Freud, who analyzed practically everything else, repeatedly denied that psychoanalysis could shed any light whatsoever on the mysteries of creativity.

And Brian Bates wrote to me recently "Most of the best research on creativity was done in the 60s and 70s with a quite dramatic drop off in quantity after then..."

Largely, I suspect because researchers began to feel that they had reached the limits of what science could discover about it.

In fact, the only thing from the research that I could tell you about how to be creative is the sort of childhood that you should have had, which is of limited help to you at this point in your lives.

However there is one negative thing that I can say - and it's "negative" because it is easier to say what creativity isn't.

A bit like the sculptor who when asked how he had sculpted a very fine elephant, explained that he'd taken a big block of marble and then knocked away all the bits that didn't look like an elephant.

Now here's the negative thing: Creativity is not a talent.

It is not a talent, it is a way of operating.

So.  How many actors does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer - thousands. Only one to do it but thousands to say "I could have done that."

How many Jewish mothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer - Don't mind me, I'll just sit here in the dark, nobody cares about me....

How many surgeons....

You see - when I say "a way of operating" what I mean is this: creativity is not an ability that you either have or do not have.

It is, for example - and this may surprise you - absolutely unrelated to IQ.  Provided that you are intelligent above a certain minimal level that is. 

But MacKinnon showed in investigating scientists, architects, engineers, and writers that those regarded by their peers as "most creative" were in no way whatsoever different in IQ from their less creative colleagues.

So in what way were they different?

MacKinnon showed that the most creative had simply acquired a facility for getting themselves into a particular mood - a way of operating - which allowed their natural creativity to function.

In fact, MacKinnon described this particular facility as an ability to play.

Indeed he described the most creative - when in this mood - as being childlike.

For they were able to play with ideas -to explore them - not for any immediate practical purpose but just for enjoyment. Play for its own sake.

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Inspiration Sunday

Glory to that Homer of painting, to that father of warmth and enthusiasm....he really paints men. ~Eugene Delacroix 1796-1863 (on Rubens)

To my eye Rubens' colouring is most contemptible.  His shadows are a filthy brown somewhat the color of excrement.  These are filled with tints and masses of yellow and red.  His lights are all the colours of the rainbow, laid on indiscriminately and broken one into another.  ~William Blake 1757-1827

The grand and heroic draftsmen, then, had better be the models, though one's aim be far from heroic and grand.  With their august help one learns to lay one's traps and spread one's nets, to snare the subject matter of one's own intuition and life experience, however special and small. ~Isabel Bishop 1902-1988

Isabel Bishop - detail of one of her paintings (don't know which one)

One can claim without fear of contradiction that artists as outstandingly gifted as Raphael are not simply men but, if it be allowed to say so, mortal gods, and that those who leave on earth an honored name in the annals of fame may also hope to enjoy in heaven a just reward for their work and talent. ~Giorgio Vasari 1511-1574

Ingres did not belong to his age...His works are not true art; for the value of art lies in its power to increase our moral force or establish its heightening influence.  ~Odilon Redon 1840-1916

I met Elizabeth Murray....She worked constantly, wouldn't go to meals, lived on Grape Nuts.  She was a real artist to me. ~Jennifer Bartlett 1941- 

His is the greatest palette of France and no one beneath our skies possessed to a greater extent than he both the serene and the pathetic, the vibration of color.  We all paint through him. ~Paul Cezanne 1839-1906 (on Delacroix).

Manet did not do the expected.  He was a pioneer.  He followed his individual whim.  Told the public what he wanted it to know, not the time worn things the public already knew and thought it wanted to hear again.  The public was very much offended. ~Robert Henri 1865-1929

Diego and Frida had open house.  In that house you'd see a king and you'd see a laborer.  He never had a distinction - never.  There was nothing he wouldn't give you. ~Louise Nevelson 1900-1988 (on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo) 

Now, Bonnard at times seems styleless.  Someone said of him that he had the rare ability to forget from one day to another what he had done.  He added the next day's experience to it, like a child following a balloon. ~Franz Kline 1910-1962

The painters I like?  To mention only contemporaries:  Delacroix, Corot, Millet, Rousseau, Courbet are masters.  And finally all those who loved and had a strong feeling for nature. ~Alfred Sisley 1839-1899

He is the painter of painters. ~Edouard Manet 1832-1883 (on Velazquez)

No words can describe the immense tenderness of Diego for the things which had beauty....He tries to do and have done what he considers just in life:  to work and create. ~Frida Kahlo 1920-1954 (on her husband, Diego Rivera)

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Daily Routines of Chris Ofili and Gerhard Richter

"Look!" by Alex Alvis limited edition bronze sculpture 

Chris Ofili

He arrives in his studio at 9 or 10 in the morning, he explained. He sets aside a corner for watercolors and drawings "away from center stage," meaning where he paints his big, collaged oil paintings. "I consider that corner of the studio to be my comfort zone," he said. First, he tears a large sheet of paper, always the same size, into eight pieces, all about 6 by 9 inches. Then he loosens up with some pencil marks, "nothing statements, which have no function."
"They're not a guide," he went on, they're just a way to say something and nothing with a physical mark that is nothing except a start."
Watercolor goes on top. He estimated that each head takes 5 to 15 minutes. Occasionally he'll paint while on the phone. He may finish one watercolor or 10 in the course of a day.
"There have been days I have not made them," he added. "Sometimes it felt absolutely necessary to do pencil drawings instead. It was cleansing. There's a beautiful sound that pencil makes when it's scratching on paper. Very soothing. Watercolor is like waving a conductor's baton. It's very quick. I almost don't even have to think."
"Sometimes," he added, "I will return to the watercolors in the evening. And that's a completely different atmosphere. If things haven't gone well during the day, I can calm down. The big paintings are like a performance -- me looking at me. It's self-conscious. There's a lot of getting up close to the canvas, then stepping back, reflecting on decisions, thinking about gestures. I try to take on all sorts of issues and ideas. So my mind is busy. With watercolor, it's just about the colors and the faces. They're free to go any way they want to go. I may tell myself, 'This will be the last one I do.' Then I'll do another. That's liberating."
The New York Times, May 8, 2005
(Thanks to Ben Griswold.)

Mono Turquesa-Chris Ofili

 

Gerhard Richter

He sticks to a strict routine, waking at 6:15 every morning. He makes breakfast for his family, takes Ella to school at 7:20 and is in the studio by 8. At 1 o'clock, he crosses the garden from the studio back to the house. The grass in the garden is uncut. Richter proudly points this out, to show that even it is a matter of his choosing, not by chance. At 1 o'clock, he eats lunch in the dining room, alone. A housekeeper lays out the same meal for him each day: yogurt, tomatoes, bread, olive oil and chamomile tea.

After lunch, Richter returns to his studio to work into the evening. ''I have always been structured,'' he explains. ''What has changed is the proportions. Now it is eight hours of paperwork and one of painting.'' He claims to waste time -- on the house, the garden -- although this is hard to believe. ''I go to the studio every day, but I don't paint every day. I love playing with my architectural models. I love making plans. I could spend my life arranging things. Weeks go by, and I don't paint until finally I can't stand it any longer. I get fed up. I almost don't want to talk about it, because I don't want to become self-conscious about it, but perhaps I create these little crises as a kind of a secret strategy to push myself. It is a danger to wait around for an idea to occur to you. You have to find the idea.'' As he talks, I notice a single drop of paint on the floor beneath one of his abstract pictures, the only thing out of place in the studio.
The New York Times Magazine, January 27, 2002
(Thanks to Dylan Chatain.)

Gerhard Richter - Untitled (Sept. 1988) 

Wishing you a turquoise kind of Saturday.  A color that brings you hope, serenity and balance.

Tomorrow is inspiration Sunday!

'Til then!

~Alex

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How Artists Work

Francis Bacon Self Portrait 1969 

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MORE Traits and Habits of Successful Artists

"Itchy!" bronze sculpture by Alex Alvis

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