The Art Palette’s agenda has been to highlight the work of local artists and support creativity in whatever form it takes.
People have been mentioning difficulties they experience in taking up their creativity and it would seem appropriate to share them because they may resonate with others.
They are the focus of this column but a discussion will need more room than this column can provide, and therefore will be taken up in future columns.
1. “I’m not an artist“ and “I don’t have a creative bone in my body,” goes with “I can’t sing a note” and “I couldn’t possibly write.” One hears those kind of statements often and it is not necessarily going to prompt an argument or attempts to persuade otherwise. There is an argument and it is about denial.
2. More privately is the statement “I can only copy,” the implication being that copying is entirely inferior, puny, not really creating. There is an argument here, too and it is about distraction.
3. “I want to paint (write, sculpt, etc.) but I can never seem to get to it.” Time, work, chores and space are often cited as blocks to beginning a creative project but it’s more about going blank, postponing, not remembering, it is something one wants to do. There is an argument here too and it is about dissociation.
As children, we are influenced by what is modelled and taught and take in all that is around us without the ability to discern what is beneficial and what is not.
Without support for our natural expression and with discouragement, dismissal and disapproval of our imagination, we will adapt, with no knowledge now of those adaptations.
We will lie to ourselves, just as we were lied to by those who were lied to by those who were lied to.
Author Nancy Hathaway suggests such conditioning “hobbles creativity because denying aspects of our own nature limits our palette and constricts the imagination. It lessens our effectiveness in the world.”
When making New Year’s resolutions, we could resolve to bring our own unique creativity to the fore, for one’s own sake, for the sake of society and for the sake of the planet.
I am not saying if we all sat around painting, etc., we would save the planet! But I am saying if we resolved denial, distraction and dissociation so that we could paint, etc., the benefits of such a courageous process would generalize to other issues, such as taking up our species’ somewhat urgent need to evolve its consciousness.
If you would like to talk about your art or comment on what you see here or would like to see here, we can be reached at artpalette@hotmail.ca.