Creativity means??

OK, I've had white squirrels in my posts now 2 days in a row, wonder what that means?

What does anything mean, really?  My topic of creativity, for instance, is a place I feel pretty comfortable.

It's part of our sermon topic coming up this Sun, but will be more the writer's realm than mine, the visual realm.

I will hopefully have a friend who does performance art, who will be there as well, to make comments that tie all forms of creativity together.

When looking for pictures to post about creativity and it's meaning to me, I kept wanting to put my grandchildren's pictures here.

The most satisfying creativity of my life...not just in the lives of wonderful people that my sons and their families exemplify, but the creative urge that brings forth life.  We all have it.  It is a reminder of how we are all connected through sex...that it is a beautiful sharing between people, which is how our species continues. 

Of course like all crones, I don't have many thoughts about the procreation portion of sex anymore.  But let's get back to the topic. 

Creativity is available always...an endlessly deep well inside us all, the source.  I think of tapping into it, bringing a cup, or perhaps just a drop of it up to taste, whenever I need some inspiration.

But I drink of creativity's abundance whenever I look at nature's flowers and trees and the earth just the way it flows and folds.

And don't forget the creativity of just breathing in and out!

The Body of my Work

One thing I want to say today, is that the meeting of the Western North Carolina Clay Club is coming to our Black Mountain studio tonight...and I do look forward to seeing who from Yancy and Mitchell counties will come check out our small teaching studio.  The students/teachers/community members and local Clay Clubbers are definitely going to be there, so it should be a great party.  We needed an excuse for a party.

Sue Monk Kidd said in her own reading on CD of her book "Travelling with Pomegranates", that her daughter was trying to follow a dictum from a writing book...to "serve the work itself, rather than the ego."  Sue said she had already done this for 20 years.
"All works of creativity are done in my name, as well as all expressions of love," the goddess may say.  Sue Kidd moves in the direction of considering the Dark Mary as a mother goddess, but leaves it as speculation.



 

For me as artist, I'd never considered all my pottery (or other artistic endeavors) as a body of work.  There are pots I made back in 81-83 while studying ceramics at U of F in Gainesville, and they are mainly kept because of usefulness, being lidded jar shapes.  I think I've kept one plate from that time as well.  Out of 2-1/2 years of ceramics study...well, they did require art history classes, and print making and photography.  I was glad to get that BFA, but wish I could have concentrated more on pottery.  I've also got the one carved plate from 77 or so. 

Anyway, I've used my own values to drive my creations.  Sometimes more for the sense of art itself, sometimes for the sense of making something to sell to another person.  Those values are both important to me.  Now I will look through some of my files of photos of my work, and see if it tells me something about itself...apart from those 2 minimal concepts.

Of course when I came up with my Artist Statement, I must have looked inside to understand what makes me create.  But for the life of me, looking at old works is a strange endeavor!  There are emotions coming up!

New Potters all the time

Have you any idea how many new potters are being born today?  Well, eventually they grow big enough to start making their wares or sculpting their objects of art...and there you have it.  New potters all the time.

I'm on my way to the environment of NCECA, where many many clay artists will be gathering.  There have been some losses this year of the old and great potters.  But the people who gather for this conference will probably be more than a hundred for each space that a recently deceased potter held.  That's a hundred hopeful talented people, dedicating a sizeable portion of their lives to make art out of clay.

Pretty amazing, isn't it?  How many will succeed, do you think?  Half?  A dozen?  One?

That was what struck me when I was sitting in an auditorium in art school, listening to a lecture about Fine Art with about 500 other students.  Well, at least 200.  I just looked around and thought, how many of these people will have their work in a gallery in 10 years?  I figured I wouldn't.  But that's cause I had already recognized that I needed to make a living doing something that provided a.) steady income, and b.) health insurance for myself and my son.

 I salute those hearty souls who step into the hopeful future with determination and whatever else it takes to live the life of an artist.  I know my potter son has spent a lot of his adult life without health insurance or a steady income.  He didn't have job security high on his list of values for a long time, but he's started talking about it lately.  And he's also considering going to grad school in, you guessed it, art and ceramics.  So he will have to wait a while for the steady income and health insurance maybe.  But I think, the world will be a better place for his having created what he can in those years, rather than having traded his artistic endeavors for security.

What about you?  Do you follow your dream?  Do you have what it takes to put your life into your creativity?

Snow is forecast for this morning, before later getting into the 40's when it will melt.  Wonder if we will see some more of whiteness...and if it's finally the last of this winter...

wonder...isn't it all about wonder?