The Creativity Well (How deep is yours?)

Underpass Abstract, #3. Boulder, Colorado, 2014

What is the source of our creativity?

A few of us have been having an ongoing, and probably never-ending, discussion about the source of an artist’s creativity. Some people seem to have oodles and noodles of it just bursting from every obscure pore in their body while others struggle to tap in to a deeply-buried and very elusive source.

Do you have to live a life of suffering to tap in to true creativity like Amy Winehouse, Ed Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, or Vincent van Gogh, for instance? Some believe so. What role does our capitalist consumer society (and, thus, our schools) play in crushing our creative potential? Do we all start out with it, but then let it whither way or allow it to be destroyed?

If I had my druthers, I’d rather be of the former of the two examples above–the oodles and noodles case. The creativity and the vision is the hardest part about art. If one has that, one can eventually develop the necessary technical skills to bring the vision to fruition as a well-executed work. My significant other is of this type–she has more creativity in her pinkie toe than I seem to have in my entire corpus humanus. Ideas seem to flow from her non-stop like a river in flood. The technical aspects, though–Photoshop, various plugins, how to size, label, and catalogue her images, printer settings, matting and framing, etc.–bore her to death and here she struggles. With time, though, she has worked hard on the technical side of the artistic equation and her work–already uniquely creative–has acquired a higher degree of overall professionalism.

Then, there is me. I have the discipline and interest to learn the technical aspects of a camera, of Photoshop, of cataloguing images, printing, framing, and so on…but, I struggle with zeroing in on what type of imagery is truly me–imagery that flows from deep inside and reveals exactly who I really am. I seem to like everything, so I make pictures of [almost] everything. Maybe, like Garry Winogrand, “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.” I am curious. I like clichés–sunrises and sunsets, old trees–and I like traditional landscapes and nature abstracts. But, I also like cityscapes–street/people, strange juxtapositions, weird architecture, grungy urban abstracts. Yin and yang.

So, I have the opposite problem as does my wife: I probably have adequate technical expertise to bring the image to print–but the bigger question is: What, precisely, should those images be? With time–and this has been a slow process–I have learned to listen carefully to my inner emotional reaction to something I create. I have noticed that there are some images–typically, the more disorienting abstracts or photographs with an unusual perspective–that satisfy me more than the others. (Even if some viewers find them confusing or not understandable.) What I need to do then, is to continue to listen closely to these innermost whispers and follow that track into the wilderness.  Hopefully, as the years go by, I will continue to develop the acuity I need to really tap in to that elusive creative fount.

What is the solution for the average beginning photographer in search of creativity and vision, then? I would say just go out and make pictures–a lot. Like a sine wave, you’ll initially be all over the place, testing the extremes, with your imagery. With time, as you begin to focus in on what turns your Model T crank (your passion), that wave will start to settle into a gentle, pleasing pattern as you focus in (sic) on what your heart is trying to tell you.

My dos centavos for the day…spend them wisely!