artist
We humans have three ways of knowing.
“The experience of Nirvana exists in the consciousness of our right hemisphere, and at any moment, we can choose to hook into that part of our brain.” ~ Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Neuroanatomist
With the exception of the arts, our culture largely neglects and dismisses metaphoric and symbolic knowing. The field of depth psychology has attempted to rectify this, along with all those who champion the arts.
Physics has demonstrated that we are not mere isolated bodies in the world. We operate within a field of creative energy. Our brain has different parts. Because of the way it is designed, the left hemisphere of our brain can’t detect these fields of creative energy. Aesthetic feeling can only be known through right brain processes.
In other words, deep intelligence lies beyond our thinking minds but we can’t access it through rational or purely physically sensory ways of knowing.
We must engage the language of the right hemisphere which is metaphor.
from Deep Knowing: Entering the Realm of Non-Ordinary Intelligence by Kim Hermanson
“If there is no feeling, there is no great art.” – Ray Bradbury
When I wrote the art book Sky’s the Limit, I spent hours interviewing the gifted artist, Nancy Cawdrey. I adore Nancy’s work and I’m inspired by her artistic process. She emphasized to me how much training she’d had.
But the women of Gee’s Bend blow the idea that artists need extensive training out of the water. None of the Gee’s Bends quilters had ever left their small, isolated, poverty-stricken rural community. The early quilters of Gee’s Bend were enslaved and uneducated.
Yet critics have hailed their work as the greatest modern art of the twentieth century.
It makes me wonder, “Who is an artist?”
Is an artist someone who has training?
Or is an artist someone who’s been moved by a vision?
Or someone who’s in love with something and wants the rest of us to love it too?
Ray Bradbury once said, “If there is no feeling, there cannot be great art.” I’d love to hear your thoughts.
“Art doesn’t come in measured quantities. It’s got to be too much or it’s not enough.”
“Art doesn’t come in measured quantities. It’s got to be too much or it’s not enough.” ~ Pauline Kael
I work with many clients who have big energy. They worry about being ‘too much.’ They want to be nice and fit in. But artists can’t live from a place of ‘fitting in.’ That’s not what they’re ABOUT.
Their GIFT is to be TOO MUCH.
Anais Nin wrote, “You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. Creation comes from an overflow.”
Don’t be afraid of your fullness. It’s a tidal wave that will carry you into the next creative act.
Artists engage in a process that lets them touch Something that’s alive.
Artists engage in a process that lets them touch Something that’s alive.
Joseph Campbell said, “The way of the artist and the way of the mystic are very much alike, except the mystic does not have a craft.”
The creative process allows us to have a conversation with Something greater than ourselves. It puts us in touch with transcendent wisdom.
Creativity is not just a personal tool for our projects. It’s an alignment with a higher intelligence.