“I’ve suffered enough. When does my artwork improve?”
Refrigerator magnet from stickergiant.com
“Suffering is justified as soon as it becomes the raw material of beauty.” Jean-Paul Sartre
The tortured artist mythology is an ancient and enduring notion: that art comes mainly from suffering, and artists are likely to be fraught with suffering and dark emotions, and even [...]
By guest author Shelley Berc. “We are all born creative, curious, and hungry to explore the world around and within us.
“For a child, creativity is expressed in play and play is the way he learns. Life is just one big erector set that is to be snapped together and pulled apart in a thousand different [...]
In his PsyBlog post Why Group Norms Kill Creativity, Jeremy Dean (a researcher at University College London) notes that “Groups only rarely foment great ideas because people in them are powerfully shaped by group norms: the unwritten rules which describe how individuals in a group ‘are’ and how they ‘ought’ to behave.
“Norms influence what people [...]
In the preface to a photography book, singer–songwriter, poet and visual artist Patti Smith describes the experience of many creators.
“The artist, in turn, sacrifices his leisure, the pleasure of being vague, of drifting half-present or merging unconsciously with the terrain. For the artist is driven, is one apart, estranged from all save his one eye.
“All [...]
In her Creativity Portal article, You’re Not Mad, You’re Creative, Orna Ross invites us to rid ourselves of self-blame and criticism stemming from misunderstanding our creative abilities. With the help of an insightful self-test, we can revision our past and present experiences, and recognize, nurture and protect our gifts that may otherwise seem disruptive and [...]
“The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Daniel Day-Lewis describes being intensely immersed in his character when he is working on a movie.
He was asked in an interview what he loves about acting: “Without [...]
Does it enhance creativity to be concerned with what other people think?
In his post Creativity and richness of brain concepts, professor of neuroesthetics Semir Zeki argues that “one of the dangers that limits creativity is self-censorship.
“Any creative person, whether in art or literature or music or theatre, who censors what they want to say or [...]
Lea Michele (“Glee”): “For my last callback, I got into this terrible car accident pulling into the Fox lot, left my smoking car on Pico Boulevard, and ran into the audition with glass in my hair.”
Continued on The Inner Actor
If we hold certain kinds of beliefs about who we are and what abilities we have – whether we are even capable of being creative, for example – we can seriously limit what we do or even attempt.
In his article Capturing creativity, Robert Epstein declared, “An explosion of creative forces is at hand, and it [...]
Actor, writer, producer Felicia Day says, “I don’t think I ever knew I wasn’t a geek” in the Girls Go Geek video below [posted on Amber Mac - site of Amber MacArthur.]
In his Wired interview article How Felicia Day Recruited Millions for Her Guild, Gus Mastrapa notes, Felicia Day’s stardom wasn’t handed down to her [...]
Our creative motivations and projects are based in some of our most primal passions, such as joy, anger, love and lust.
In her article Creative Juice – A Dozen Key Lessons for Creative Dreamers, Suzanne Falter-Barns quotes Deepak Chopra: “Creativity is ultimately sexual – I’m sorry — but it is!”
Falter-Barns comments, “I couldn’t agree more. I’d [...]
What lies beneath our usual waking consciousness provides so much of the material we can use for creative expression.
The Red Book is a new publication of Carl Jung’s journals and explorations into his soul and psyche.
More on that later, but first – two artists talk about using their subconscious for creative inspiration.
A magazine profile of [...]
From article: At 5, singer hits high notes in her career, by Catherine Cheney, Los Angeles Times September 4, 2009
Kaitlyn Maher was a finalist on ‘America’s Got Talent,’ and has a new CD and a Disney movie coming out.
From article Late Bloomers-Why do we equate genius with precocity?, by Malcolm Gladwell.
Genius, in the popular conception, is inextricably tied up with precocity—doing something truly creative, we’re inclined to think, requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth.
Orson Welles made his masterpiece, “Citizen Kane,” at twenty-five. Herman Melville wrote a book a year through [...]
See my related video Creative obsession: Adam Savage and Stanley Kubrick [link opens in new window/tab]
The video starts with a clip of Adam Savage talking about his passion for making a replica Dodo skeleton.
He relates how he collected thousands of images and documents, and crafted a beautiful museum-quality mounted skeleton of the defunct bird.
[Clip from [...]
Einstein’s concept that “time is relative depending on your state of motion” had been explored by others, but “they were too confined by the dogmas of the day.
“Einstein alone was impertinent enough to discard the notion of absolute time.” Walter Isaacson, who wrote the biography Einstein: His Life and Universe.
Robert Ornstein, PhD, author of The [...]
[From a Dana Press Blog:]
At the recent Learning and the Brain Conference in Washington D.C., Nancy C. Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D., discussed the importance of providing students with a “liberal education” that combines the study of the arts and the sciences.
She asked: How important are the arts for optimal development of the mind and brain? How [...]
Video interview of Sark, author of Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper: Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories, and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It.
One of Sark’s pieces of advice for realizing a creative project such as writing is, “Remember, action comes before inspiration. The inspiration comes from the actual doing of [...]
Coach and author Amy Lyndon comments, “I’m sure not too many people share my views on this, but I do believe that anyone with a great emotional facility, imagination, and fortitude can become a great actor.
“The actor is made by his or her own willingness to be great. There are actors that were born to [...]
“Creative thinking can be stimulated by two things; intensely desired goals and pressing problems. Your creative capacities need something to hone in on and your job is to provide it.
“To trigger your imagination, write out a clear description of your ideal end result or goal. Be clear about the goal, be flexible about the process.”
Continued [...]
Divergent thinking is one of the defining qualities of creative and high ability people. While it may be a prominent trait of children and many gifted adults, encouraging out of the ordinary ideas can be suppressed as we “grow up” and learn to fit in. But it can also be actively nurtured.
Some examples of what [...]
One of the creativity-inspiring characters in her book The Nine Modern Day Muses is Audacity, as author Jill Badonsky explains:
Audacity in the case of Muse creativity is not disrespect toward other mortals, or toward oneself. Audacity’s influence includes respect — yet this does not necessarily mean a positive public opinion is needed.
In fact, one of [...]
Our shadow side is the multitude of personality qualities, instincts, urges and thoughts we may be offended by and actively ignore, deny or try to cover up. But this secret or unexplored inner landscape can be a source of personal growth and creative expression.
It isn’t a matter of freely acting on our urges or fantasies, [...]
How do you respond to sensory input?
According to research, some of us are more likely to be augmenters, or have nervous systems that amplify or increase sensory stimulation (which may help explain the trait of high sensitivity), and other people are reducers, who dampen or decrease sensory input, and find a need to pursue stronger [...]
developing creativity, anxiety and creativity, anxiety relief programs
“Only a small percentage of creative people work as often or as deeply as, by all rights, they might be expected to work.
“What stops them? Anxiety or some face of anxiety like doubt, worry, or fear… anxiety is the great silencer of the creative person.”
Therapist and creativity coach [...]
developing creativity, creativity and society, social support of the arts, creativity and personal development
Everyone may be creative to a degree, but for some there is what writer Pearl Buck (1892-1973) described as “the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something [...]
