Category Archives: creativity

Behind every good man…

“My own image of my work is that I no sooner settle into something than a break occurs. These breaks are always painful and depressing but despite them I see that there’s a consistency that holds out, but is hard to define.”

Lee Krasner

Lee Krasner would often cut up her drawings and paintings to create collages – revising, revisiting and discarding. She had exacting standards and constantly edited and reassessed her work, consequently her catalog of surviving artworks (published in 1995) lists only 599 known pieces. She was rigorously self-critical and this critical eye is believed to have been important to (her husband) Jackson Pollock’s work.

Within a creative partnership (containing two creative souls) there is always a hierarchal tipping point.

The individual who creates the most waves within the public domain automatically become the dominant figure. The perception of achievement and value automatically encircles the ‘socially successful’ individual. Within these partnerships the minor player is in many cases the glue that binds the success together. History always plays down this importance.

“With Jackson there was quiet solitude. Just to sit and look at the landscape. An inner quietness. After dinner, to sit on the back porch and look at the light. No need for talking. For any kind of communication.”

Krasner had a crisis of identity – being both a woman and the wife of Pollock, the public and artistic perception of her role as wife and artist lead her to sign her works with the genderless initials “L.K.” instead of her more recognizable (public) full name. The daily give-and-take of the partnership between Pollock and Krasner stimulated both artists. They both fought a battle for legitimacy and individual expression and opposed old-fashioned, conformism and its repressive culture…

…but which one drove the successful partnership?

Lee Krasner. (2012, April 7). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:38, April 10, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lee_Krasner&oldid=486005656

Other woman artists linked to the Abstract Expressionism  movement included:

Helen Frankenthaler, a major contributor to postwar American painting scene exhibiting her work for over six decades (early 1950s until 2011).

Joan Mitchell was a “second generation” abstract expressionist painter and an essential member of the American Abstract expressionist movement, even though much of her career took place in France.

Grace Hartigan  was the only woman artist in the Museum of Modern Art‘s legendary The New American Painting exhibition which toured Europe in the late 1950s.

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Society is a network

Society is a network,  business is a network, families are a network…

When you ride a horse your body has contact with the horse’s body. If you really get a good contact with a horse it feels like your spine is connected to the horse’s spine, a thought to turn right feels like it happens imediatly, you feel as one. This is a bizarre feeling but is an example of an organic plug in network. This feeling can be reproduced in a small business context.

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Coping With Creativity?

I think everybody is creative in their day to day lives – it is just that some of us are pseudo intellectual about it, no body is creatively unique – but a lot of us think we are.

What’s it really like living with creativity? Look back over the years at the tortured artists, drunken writers and drug-crazed musicians who litter our heritage and you might start to ask the question: is creativity a blessing or a curse?…the temptation to contain creativity and make it conform to ‘the norm’ is what normally happens in businesses. You can’t have a random, inspired, maverick shooting off left right and center – this is chaos….or is it?

Juggling with creativity, trying to make it fit into your daily life is a logistical nightmare. In an interview I did with Claire Barker, an artist, illustrator, author, mother, wife, farmer, she explained to me how she talked to the solicitor of the estate of Ted Hughes (UK poet) to get their permission to use one of his poems and still managed to deliver lambs.

Can a creative person ever be truly happy as they constantly strive for perfection in their chosen art? Listen to an interview with Garry Smout, who talks about the problems of using early portable black and white video cameras in the 1970’s, pioneering literary review website the Barcelona Review, early synths and how to kill your babies. The problem with being creative is that everything has to be pushed to the limits.

Creativity is something we are all born with to greater or lesser degrees. It is a vital part of our physiological make up and development. We learn to play and fantasize as children, skills we carry forward into our adulthood. However, if creativity takes hold of your entire existence then it becomes a disease that is parasitic, eating away at your whole world. It might sound melodramatic but creativity can become a cancer of the body or the trigger for psychotic episodes.

Listen to Alisha, a doctor, a GP who is also a poet. I try to find out if creativity is a madness, a disease, an anesthetic or a poison but find out that maybe it could be a ‘Zebra’. Does she use creativity in diagnosis and consultation?

Sometimes I’m not sure how to cope with my creativity, all I know is I have to continue living this YO-YO lifestyle because that is how I work best….read/listen to more.