. . . creative people do think in a fundamentally different way than everyone else. The study showed that non-creative types versus creative types do indeed exhibit quite different patterns of brain activity while going about solving problems, and even just while daydreaming. ~Rebecca Sato. Recently on one of the TV news magazines I saw a feature that linked brain damage (stroke) to personality changes that included an unleashing of compulsive creativity.
Call it the “parietal paradox”: Patients with a variant of frontotemporal dementia—in which selective involvement of the left anterior temporal lobe has been detected—suddenly exhibit an ability to create startling works of art when no previous talent or even interest had been documented. In other cases, experienced artists go on to produce paintings that are as striking as anything found in their entire body of work. ~ Fred Balzac
Recently on one of the TV news magazines I saw a feature that linked brain damage (stroke) to personality changes that included an unleashing of compulsive creativity. This phenomena sparked my reading and that reading supported the premise of that TV show. It made me wonder. It made me wonder about myself.
I am not a well-known artist. Some people call what I do a hobby. For me, the art (the poetry, the doll making, journaling, blogging, jewelry making, the Paper Mache, the novels, and all that creative stuff I do) is not a hobby. I feel insulted when what I do is called a hobby. While I may lack talent, and I am unsuccessful by most of the measuring sticks on earth, I think of myself as an artist. What I’m wondering about right now is WHY. Why do I create? Why does anyone create? Why is my art so constantly on my mind? I’ve had no stroke. I’m unaware of any brain damage. It is certainly possible that I have some birth-defective brain that has changed my left anterior temporal lobe, but if so, I don’t know anything about that.
I remember once, in a group session with Lili Parish, my shrink/friend, someone in the group implied that my abilities to paint pictures and write poetry were “gifts.” The suggestion made was that some people have the gift, and other people didn’t. The following quote tends to sum up this mote of thought:
I've always known I was gifted, which is not the easiest thing in the world for a person to know, because you're not responsible for your gift, only for what you do with it. ~Hazel Scott
I argued about this train of thought..
What I would say is that if you had drawn as many pictures as I had you would be at least as good an artist as I am, and you would probably be better. I am not sure how many little cartoons, and serious paintings I have completed, but I would estimate it is in the thousands. I have been drawing since before I started school. Instead of paying attention in class I was drawing on my notebook paper. I draw and write every day, and have missed days with my art only after surgery or when overwhelmed by my daily life [like the days I spent moving to Oklahoma City from Lakeland Florida.] In a similar way, as a kid, I demonstrated zero athletic skill. I couldn’t throw a football. I knew guys that could throw like a pro, but that was a “gift” I did not seem to have. Of course those guys good at throwing footballs had been tossing a ball around for years.
I believe that every person is born with talent. ~Maya Angelou
The more you do what you do the better you will do what you do. This was my explanation for what abilities I had, as well as the abilities other people have that I don’t. I am terrible at playing the Sitar. Does Ravi Shankar have a gift that I have been denied, or was he a gifted Sitar player because he spent his life playing the Sitar while I have never actually seen one in person?
This rationale goes a long way towards explaining talent, at least in my mind. In Renaissance Italy they didn’t have a lot of historically great ballplayers, but their culture didn’t care that much about a kids throwing ability. In Renaissance Italy they support art. So if a kid was drawing on the wall, and if some passing adult noticed the drawing, and said it looked good [for a kid that age], that kid would be encourage to do more of that activity. The more the kid is encouraged, praised, and urged on, the more they will do what is getting this positive feedback, and eventually they will have an artistic gift. In the 1940’s if a little kid threw a rock and it went further than a passing adult thought was normal for a kid that age, they immediately would think, “Baseball!”
Another behaviorist shrink/friend of mine, named James Cail, use to say, “People do what they get paid to do.” What he meant by that is that people can be paid with money, or just positive feedback, but if they are getting something out of the activity they will keep doing that activity. Vincent Van Gogh. only sold one painting in his life time, but that does not mean he was not getting paid. There were people in his life that admired, and supported and encouraged his artistic activities.
But maybe, just getting positive feedback, and spending your life doing a particular artistic activity is not all of the answer. The people on that TV show who had strokes started doing art compulsively and they had no life of practicing that art. They just suddenly had to be artists. Their ability can be questioned. Some of the work seemed especially primitive, but then no more primitive than modern art by a hundred other accepted and admired artists.
Could it be that creativity is always linked to some quirk of the brain, or were these stroke victim artists just a aberration, and that artistic talent is normally, and mostly often the result of the ole “practice makes perfect” sort of stuff?
Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. ~W. C. Fields
Here is what I think. I want to believe that artistic ability is not a gift. Because that is what I want to believe, I look for quotes and data that supports that view.
Why do I want to believe that artistic ability is not a gift? Because I don’t feel gifted. If it is a gift, then it is possible that I didn’t get the gift, or that the size of my gift is small. If art is a gift then I am limited by that truth. If artistic ability is developed then there are no limits on what I could accomplish artistically. Not only can I go as far as I choose to go with my art, but this would be equally true for you. Anyone, and everyone could be and do whatever they wanted if they just put their mind to it, work art for it, and sustain their interest, motivation, and practice.
I am not a well-known artist. Some people call what I do a hobby. For me, the art (the poetry, the doll making, journaling, blogging, jewelry making, the Paper Mache, the novels, and all that creative stuff I do) is not a hobby. I feel insulted when what I do is called a hobby. While I may lack talent, and I am unsuccessful by most of the measuring sticks on earth, I think of myself as an artist. What I’m wondering about right now is WHY. Why do I create? Why does anyone create? Why is my art so constantly on my mind? I’ve had no stroke. I’m unaware of any brain damage. It is certainly possible that I have some birth-defective brain that has changed my left anterior temporal lobe, but if so, I don’t know anything about that.
I remember once, in a group session with Lili Parish, my shrink/friend, someone in the group implied that my abilities to paint pictures and write poetry were “gifts.” The suggestion made was that some people have the gift, and other people didn’t. The following quote tends to sum up this mote of thought:
I've always known I was gifted, which is not the easiest thing in the world for a person to know, because you're not responsible for your gift, only for what you do with it. ~Hazel Scott
I argued about this train of thought..
What I would say is that if you had drawn as many pictures as I had you would be at least as good an artist as I am, and you would probably be better. I am not sure how many little cartoons, and serious paintings I have completed, but I would estimate it is in the thousands. I have been drawing since before I started school. Instead of paying attention in class I was drawing on my notebook paper. I draw and write every day, and have missed days with my art only after surgery or when overwhelmed by my daily life [like the days I spent moving to Oklahoma City from Lakeland Florida.] In a similar way, as a kid, I demonstrated zero athletic skill. I couldn’t throw a football. I knew guys that could throw like a pro, but that was a “gift” I did not seem to have. Of course those guys good at throwing footballs had been tossing a ball around for years.
I believe that every person is born with talent. ~Maya Angelou
The more you do what you do the better you will do what you do. This was my explanation for what abilities I had, as well as the abilities other people have that I don’t. I am terrible at playing the Sitar. Does Ravi Shankar have a gift that I have been denied, or was he a gifted Sitar player because he spent his life playing the Sitar while I have never actually seen one in person?
This rationale goes a long way towards explaining talent, at least in my mind. In Renaissance Italy they didn’t have a lot of historically great ballplayers, but their culture didn’t care that much about a kids throwing ability. In Renaissance Italy they support art. So if a kid was drawing on the wall, and if some passing adult noticed the drawing, and said it looked good [for a kid that age], that kid would be encourage to do more of that activity. The more the kid is encouraged, praised, and urged on, the more they will do what is getting this positive feedback, and eventually they will have an artistic gift. In the 1940’s if a little kid threw a rock and it went further than a passing adult thought was normal for a kid that age, they immediately would think, “Baseball!”
Another behaviorist shrink/friend of mine, named James Cail, use to say, “People do what they get paid to do.” What he meant by that is that people can be paid with money, or just positive feedback, but if they are getting something out of the activity they will keep doing that activity. Vincent Van Gogh. only sold one painting in his life time, but that does not mean he was not getting paid. There were people in his life that admired, and supported and encouraged his artistic activities.
But maybe, just getting positive feedback, and spending your life doing a particular artistic activity is not all of the answer. The people on that TV show who had strokes started doing art compulsively and they had no life of practicing that art. They just suddenly had to be artists. Their ability can be questioned. Some of the work seemed especially primitive, but then no more primitive than modern art by a hundred other accepted and admired artists.
Could it be that creativity is always linked to some quirk of the brain, or were these stroke victim artists just a aberration, and that artistic talent is normally, and mostly often the result of the ole “practice makes perfect” sort of stuff?
Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. ~W. C. Fields
Here is what I think. I want to believe that artistic ability is not a gift. Because that is what I want to believe, I look for quotes and data that supports that view.
Why do I want to believe that artistic ability is not a gift? Because I don’t feel gifted. If it is a gift, then it is possible that I didn’t get the gift, or that the size of my gift is small. If art is a gift then I am limited by that truth. If artistic ability is developed then there are no limits on what I could accomplish artistically. Not only can I go as far as I choose to go with my art, but this would be equally true for you. Anyone, and everyone could be and do whatever they wanted if they just put their mind to it, work art for it, and sustain their interest, motivation, and practice.
So while there may be little fissures in the brain that can contribute to a creativity compulsion, I still lean to the POV that artistic ability is developed by creating art.
I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time. ~Charles Dickens
An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men. ~Thomas Fuller
You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction. ~George Horace Lorimer
A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work. ~Colin Powell
The only thing an artist has to remember is to never lose faith in his vision. ~James Lee Burke
No comments:
Post a Comment