The Laws of Nature

Thursday, January 31, 2013

The Power of Creativity

Ampere's Law
watercolor on paper
26" x 20"
Katharine A. Cartwright, 2012
Ever notice how some of your best artwork is produced when you allow your mind to wander, almost without direction? That's the power of creativity.

Creativity in the arts depends upon one's ability to be simultaneously intuitive and analytical. It's the melding of one's spatial thinking (non-verbal) and stored knowledge. It's allowing the mind to play and still adhere to acquired skills and the results of experiments. It's shedding inhibitions and discovering the far-reaches of your mind that you often ignore or wall-off. It's having some guts and not caring about what others think!

I've spent decades (nearly a half-century now) creating art and it has taken me most of that time to reach this conclusion: creativity is a powerful tool in every discipline (not just art) that leads to innovation. Without innovation, we stagnate; our society stagnates; the arts stagnate. So, why look to others to create and innovate when we have it within ourselves to do so? What's holding us back? We, ourselves.

I've spent only a few years as an art instructor and have been very lucky to work with both professional and amateur artists. The number one lesson - the thing we spend the most time on - is discovering what to say as an individual and then how to say it in two dimensions. There's nothing more important than the artist's voice.

What are your thoughts?