Finding Freedom to Create: A Painter's Roadmap - Softcover

Mize, Dianne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1452596948 ISBN 13: 9781452596945

Publisher: BalboaPress, 2014

Synopsis

Travel with Dianne Mize as she takes you on a journey to your inner artist and guides you with practical ways to set aside struggle and enjoy being the creative individual that you know you are. Mize inserts tutorials and brain teasers among philosophical ideals and psychological certainties as she compares the processes in the visual arts with music and shows parallels in an array of pursuits using examples from Mozart to Danica Patrick. She explores in depth how the composing principles artists use are direct reflections of a healthy human psychology as well as the organizing energy that keeps nature and the universe working. Whether you are just beginning or already proficient as an artist, Finding Freedom to Create provides an enlightening guide to help you find confidence in your inner voice and tap into solid resources that can aid you on the way to artistic wholeness.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Finding Freedom to Create

A Painter's Roadmap

By Dianne Mize

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2014 Dianne Mize
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-9694-5

Contents

PREFACE, xv, 
1 THE ESSENCE OF CREATIVE FREEDOM, 1, 
2 CRAFT: THE ARTIST'S VOICE, 10, 
3 SEEING: THE ARTIST'S RESOURCE, 20, 
4 COMPOSING: THE HEARTBEAT OF EXPRESSION 29, 
5 HOW COMPOSING WORKS, 36, 
6 THE VOCABULARY OF COMPOSING, 63, 
7 THE COMPOSING PROCESS, 82, 
8 CLAIMING CREATIVE FREEDOM, 118, 
9 CREATIVE FREEDOM IS IMMINENT, 134, 
EPILOGUE, 143, 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, 145, 
RECOMMENDED READING, 147, 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR, 149, 

CHAPTER 1

The Essence of Creative Freedom

Once you label me you negate me —Søren Kierkegaard

Individual Uniqueness

To be free to create is to be unencumbered, to enter into the creative act without hesitation, without doubt, without self- consciousness. This haven is like a waterfall streaming in continuous harmony with an unending source and unlimited potential. Our supply of creative energy originates from within the essence of who we are, that place of uniqueness that comes with us the day we are born. It is our individuality.

This is the complete I am within each of us. From our birth moment forward, no matter what happens to us, we remain I am. Among the seven billion humans inhabiting the Earth, you are the only one among them who is you. You are your own creative source.

In a perfect world the I am would be given unconditional acceptance. The priority of the culture itself would be to nurture that distinctiveness, beginning at birth and continuing through full maturity. But societies are still evolving, still preferring that we blend together, still judging that to be acceptable is to be defined by externally prescribed collective values regardless of one internal identity. It is not a perfect world.

In most cultures, generation after generation tends to cling unquestioningly to accepted myths and beliefs. These they pass on to their children, just as their parents had to them. They do not try to see the I am living in that little human being they were given.

From a very young age we learn either to appreciate who we are or to judge ourselves inadequate: it all depends upon the degree to which we feel we are acceptable. This dilemma seems familiar to many of us, especially those of us who as children didn't fit the expectations of our families or of the society and culture in which we grew up.

It is the nature of the artist to see things differently, to explore what other people take for granted. We imagine new worlds, we delight in small things others find insignificant, our strong intuition often leads us to ask questions that raise eyebrows, and our inner knowing sometimes defies conscious reasoning. Many of us perceive beyond what seems obvious or appears to be possible. We are most content when we are creating.

If we are fortunate enough to be born into a family that honors our quirks, we will grow a strong self-confidence, and our inner voice stands a good chance of becoming the driving force of our lives. But if our family insists on our putting aside childish things, replacing them with tradition's expectations, we begin to experience conflict.

As our world expands and as we continue to be exposed to the druthers of those around us, we begin to judge ourselves insufficient. We are conflicted between blending into the conventions of our culture or risking alienation. We need affirmation.

We find ways to camouflage ourselves in an effort to fit in. We convince ourselves that through imitation we can belong. We assume an identity that conforms with those around us. We take refuge in the shadows rather than embracing our uniqueness. I am goes into hiding. It becomes a matter of intention, preferring the safety of belonging to the security of being oneself. There is the fear of being alien within ones family and peers.

This pattern of imitation suppresses our inner voice, overriding it with the voices of our culture. Our individual uniqueness becomes restrained and muted. It is from this place that we feel inadequate in our creative efforts.

Behind this camouflage we lack confidence in our own ideas, our spontaneity tightens up, we depend upon logic rather than our own intuition. We bombard ourselves with desires for approval from others, we search for ways to fit in, we try scheme after scheme, trend after trend. Our creative work becomes an elaboration of something that already exists, rather than a direct response from our inner artist. We tend to imitate styles, hitchhike on current trends, adopt accepted philosophies and theories, or else shy away from it all because we've convinced ourselves we can't do it—we're just not good enough.

Camouflage is no fun. It never stops bringing on conflict because it contradicts the truth of who we are. Maintaining camouflage causes a constant struggle that requires far too much energy. But just as the choice was made to assume camouflage, the choice can be made to emerge from it. This move makes a person feel shaky at first, but it gets easier day by day until, finally, it feels like home--because it is.

To live from one's individual uniqueness is to live freely. The motion is a perpetual spiral outward and upward. Rather than imitating whatever is already established, we are creating that which has never been. Rather than repeating, we are responding. Our creative lives are inspired and forward- looking, nonresisting, always learning, always exploring, always knowing that where we are is exactly where we belong.

Being free to create does not require a formulated theory or a set of rules to memorize and follow, nor does it necessitate learning a philosophy by which to live. It only requires that you learn your craft, learn how to compose with it, and respond from your own authenticity. That's it. That's all we need to do.

What I have learned as artist and as teacher is that there can never be full joy within imitation, and that the authentic artist can never be fully realized by limiting the self to acceptable norms. There is no contentment to be found in camouflage. Real joy comes, in the words of American philosopher Joseph Campbell, by following your bliss. That bliss is ours when we follow the inner voice of our individual uniqueness.

Style: The Artist's Hand

Style is the artist's handwriting, the validation of the artist's inner voice. It is the distinct manner within which we shape our work, the outer manifestation recognized as our touch. Style evolves as the artist matures, but its essence remains consistent and always recognizable. True style is never faked or affected by imitation or elaboration.

When we first learned to shape letters of the alphabet, each of us was on our way to building a personal handwriting. It took a lot of concentration to create those letters, but by repeating the motions over and over, what began as a tedious task eventually became effortless. Ultimately we began to turn letters into words, words into sentences, and sentences into thoughts. The more words we learned, the more we expanded our ability to give nuance to what we wanted to write.

In time that skill became automatic. Our conscious thought now could concentrate on the ideas we wanted to express. We no longer had to think about forming characters and connecting words. We were free to communicate in our own handwriting.

As we matured and continued to practice, those around us recognized our writing as being unique to us. And as adults our signature became synonymous with our identity, legally and personally.

It's no different in painting and drawing. We develop our natural approach by doing. When we become adept in the mechanics of handling tools and materials, a visible consistency appears, our style, our artistic signature, emerges. When we trust this to what feels natural rather than attempting to imitate the trend or attitude of others, our style becomes our way of expressing our truth, our inner voice.

Our signature style should never be forced or imitated or contrived or anything but spontaneous. It should be allowed to develop instinctively within the journey of becoming artists. To affect our innate presence is to fake it, to distort the authentic process into something that is not our truth.

The beauty of allowing style to develop on its own is that one never has to wonder about it. Regardless of the genre, the work itself reflects the artist's true nature, whether working from observation, imagination, or abstraction. No matter how many artists choose a similar mode of expression, each utilizes a unique artistic handwriting, recognizable as that particular artist's style.

On a wall hang two unlabeled portraits, one by Andrew Wyeth and the other by John Singer Sargent. Each interprets his subject with a mastery of his craft. If we are familiar with the artists, we instantly know which artist created which painting. Even if we are not, it is easy to see the two styles as distinct.

As with these artists, your style comes from that inner self that is uniquely you. It is the signature of your individuality, which is unlike that of any other person. It comes from the place where your authenticity lives.

The question of style should not be a worry for the emerging artist. Listen intently to I am as your style automatically and spontaneously develops, becoming more refined as you mature as an artist.

The Creative Current

When we are fully immersed in the act of creating, there is a space within us where all that we are and all that we know come together into a oneness. We become so completely absorbed in what we are doing that we lose awareness of time and place. When we stay present there, not allowing ourselves to be distracted or to resist what is happening, we create freely and from wholeness. Here, we lose all self-consciousness: we are totally engaged in the act of doing. I call this experience our creative current. It is the place within us from which we are free to create and, therefore, from which we grow and evolve.

Like an electrical current whose voltage flows across a wire, the creative current flows across an intuitive path that we access when we are totally focused within the act of creating, whether performing, composing, or constructing.

For centuries, philosophers have questioned why Shakespeare's works continue to sustain our interest, to excite and enchant us as if written yesterday. Why is it that so many works over the ages have succumbed to the dustbin of time while Leonardo's Last Supper, John Newton's Amazing Grace, Rodin's The Shade, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and so many other creative works continue to stand the test of time? Each is the product of an artist working in the creative current.

We see the creative current fully engaged when we watch a ballet dancer perform a perfect program, a golfer make an impeccable swing, or a pianist give a flawless recital. In each case, what is happening within the performer is a complete and mindful focus on the action: all control is yielded to the process where conscious thought about procedure is put aside, where all that happens comes from this wholeness of being and doing.

This is the place from which Tolkein wrote Lord of the Rings, from where Michelangelo carved David, and Mozart composed his Requiem. It is the arena from which the purest art an individual has to offer is made, from which arises the most effective expression of all that the artist knows and can do in that moment of creation. It is the place where the complete I am is totally engaged without restriction, without hesitation, without thought, without judgment. It is truly a state of being within which action flows. It is true consciousness.

Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term flow to explain the activity of this experience. In his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he describes it as "the feeling when things are going well as an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness." Athletes call this being in the zone.

Flow as Csikszentmihalyi defines it alludes to what happens. My concept of creative current embraces his concept of flow but locates it within the field our intuition. Whereas flow points to what happens while we're directly engaged, the creative current gives that action an environment.

Think about that space for a moment. Imagine it as an actual location in your mind, an area that surrounds all that you know and have experienced being channeled through your act of doing, guided by your inner knowing. All you have learned and know how to do resides in that pathway and is always accessible to you. Whenever you go there for your creative experience, your activity automatically streams from that place and is propelled onward by the inner spirit that causes it to be alive and engaging.

Within that creative current, conscious thought becomes suspended in the moment. In fact, if logical thinking takes over, the performance will splinter, a misstep is likely to occur, or the creator will become sidetracked. We all have watched as a figure skater soars over a bed of ice, forming multiple configurations and movements, and we all know that sudden sick feeling we get when the skater takes a stumble and falls. The error occurred when the creative current was interrupted with conscious thought.

To stay within the current requires from us only two efforts: that our attention is given to the moment. and that our intention is our immediate action. It's a full-focused response to the now. When either force shifts to anything other than the process, the current becomes broken, thwarted, or fragmented.

After a successful stint of excellent pitching, Atlanta Braves pitcher Kris Medlen's work went into a slump. For several games in a row, his performance was mediocre and at times awkward. Medlen discovered that his problem had nothing to do with his skill, but came from overthinking: for every pitch, he had been assessing how the muscles in his body were moving, giving attention to how he was making the throw happen rather than to the pitch itself. Once he realized this, he refocused so that his attention was redirected to pitch itself, allowing his body to react automatically. In his words, "I just relaxed and let it happen." His game improved dramatically.

Medlen's creative current was broken by his focusing on a logical sequence of moves he understood to be necessary to make a good pitch. He didn't need to do that, because he had practiced those motions so many times that his body automatically knew them. When he relaxed into that knowledge and let his intuition guide his pitches, he was back in business.

In fact, the creative current itself is guided by intuition, not by logical thinking. The role of what we know to be left-brain activity—rational thinking controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain—is for training and practicing, but has no part to play during performing. Amid the schooling and rehearsing of our skills, we build into memory the proficiency necessary to perform. When that awareness is guided by our intuition, the creative current is free to flow.

Tennis player Serena Williams, figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, violinist Joshua Bell, and poet Maya Angelou all have one thing in common: each slides easily into the creative current and it is within that space from which they deliver their most astonishing work. It is when mastery of a craft actively unites with intuition that we see a person freely performing at their best.

The beauty of the creative current is that it is available at all levels of creating, whether one is a student just beginning to learn a craft or a master like those I've mentioned. We do exercises to learn new skills, and we practice them to hone our craft. When we've experienced enough practice that we can create without thinking, each new skill becomes an integral part of the path.

It is within that place that we have access to the creative current. Our performance aptitude gains momentum with every new thing we understand and learn how to do, causing the path to evolve in an upward spiral of creative motion. There is no limit to the magnitude that can be added to it.

It is my experience with this creative current that propels me to share with you a way of becoming prepared to keep the current open and flowing. Although I am talking to those who find their voice in the art of painting, the process is universal, regardless of one's mode of expression.

CHAPTER 2

Craft: The Artist's Voice

Who you are gets defined in so many ways that have nothing to do with you. —Wayne Dyer, PhD

There is a distinction between the art of painting and craft of painting. The art is the where ideas abide, while craft is the mechanics through which those concepts are expressed and made visible. Craft is the skilled motion that allows those new thoughts to be conveyed freely and with clarity. The two cannot function separately. Without substance no craft is needed, and without craft nothing can be communicated.

Craft begins to develop with the first mark the artist makes as a child. It involves developing muscle dexterity, learning how to use tools, grasping how to manipulate materials, and determining how to combine these skills to solve problems. In essence, craft is the how-to of any process. Its development gives the artist a voice, the strength of which is determined by the degree of competence acquired.

The outcome of anything we undertake to do is evidence of how adept we are at doing it. The richness, refinement, and depth of our work increase as we become more practiced in the mechanics: the more competent we are, the stronger our voice. In simpler words, the more we practice doing, the better we do it and the more confidence we have in our ability.

Art, then, is the expression of two voices: our inner voice from which we are motivated—our inspiration--and our outer voice, our craft.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Finding Freedom to Create by Dianne Mize. Copyright © 2014 Dianne Mize. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: BalboaPress
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1452596948
• ISBN 13: 9781452596945
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168