The creative force
The other night I was at a party. There I partook in a conversation made up of a mining engineer, a graduate lawyer, an aspiring tax lawyer and myself (for the purposes of the conversation I was classified as a law student - not as bad as a lawyer, but not far off). The mining engineer remarked that he was always glad when, in a social setting, there was a tax lawyer around because on those occasions he was no longer at the bottom of the social food chain. Apparently nobody likes mining engineers. And apparently nobody likes tax lawyers.
The following night I was at another party (I know, I’m so popular right? Unfortunately they were both going away parties (refer to my previous post, All My Friends are Leaving Brisbane)). Here, I witnessed a conversation in which several people expressed mystified admiration for artists (in the broader sense) who work to produce something from scratch, out of inspiration.
Seemingly, the occupation of ‘artist’ appeared much higher on the ‘social food chain’ than mining engineer and lawyer.
The sentiment expressed was a kind of puzzled bemusement at the creative force, which, according to this conversation, remained a mystery to those who are ‘without it’. And it is this enigmatic reputation that seems to give ‘artist’ the cutting edge when it comes to social acceptance.
Why is it that being an artist is a better source of “chat” than other occupations? What is this mysterious ‘creative force’ that fuels artistry, and do some of us actually have it and some of us don’t? As someone who, I feel, bridges the divide, I am going to try to answer these questions.
Before I go on I must firstly declare my allegiances and, indeed, why I feel I bridge the divide between ‘artist’ and ‘other’. I fit quite comfortably in the ‘other’ camp. I study law, and I work in a very business-minded occupation. I take pleasure in efficiency and effectiveness. I don’t have any time for pretentiousness. I think that people should hold high aspirations, and work hard to achieve them.
On the other hand, when I am privy to these conversations about the ‘mysterious creative force’ I find myself unable to sympathise with the general mystification. I usually don’t participate, but rather I listen and feel oddly uncomfortable. I want to try to explain the way that the subconscious mind and the intellectual one work together to create art. It happened to me when I was sitting on my laundry’s slate floor at 3:00AM one summer’s evening. In a matter of hours, I put a semester’s worth of thinking and preparation into a series of collages. And they were alright; well, I won a prize for them so yay for me. It had happened before that when I sat down in front of a computer and popped out a short story which ended up winning a short story competition. And it used to happen when I stayed up late at night sketching costumed figures on an old art pad, but I don’t tend to do that anymore. I do this instead.
But how do they think of it?
People who are artists by occupation are constantly open to the weird shit that pops into their heads. And by “their”, I mean “our”.
Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen.
For some artists, things just kind of happen from there.
For example, Mueck’s sculptures: “How did he even have the idea to make a huge baby? I would never be able to just think of doing something like that”.
Imagine a father who has just witnessed the birth of his first child. The baby is lying there, writhing, screaming. It’s bloody and it’s like nothing he’s ever seen before. This moment signifies a turning point in his life; from this point onwards, things will never be like they were. He is overwhelmed. The baby fills his mind. It is like a giant baby.
Ping!
NB: When I go ‘ping’, that is the sound of a symbolic lightbulb switching on. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear at the start.
For other artists — actually, most artists prior to the middle of the 20th century —inspiration comes from a combination of ‘ping!’ moments and a long-winded battle with the ‘institution’ of art. There is a famous scene in Pollock, that Ed Harris movie about the life of Jackson Pollock, where a drunken Pollock exclaims “fuck Picasso” as he is being dragged, drunken, up the flight of stairs to his apartment. Why? Because Pollock spent his entire artistic career trying to one-up Picasso’s achievement of composition without form. He goes mad because of it, dying at the age of 44.
Why did you think Van Gogh cut off his ear?
Not all of these artists go mad, but a lot of them have a pretty tough time of it, battling against the institution, or l’Academie, as it was known in France. Monet was a real outcast in his time, when nobody cared about the effects of light on haystacks and waterlilies; it wasn’t considered ‘high art’.
So was Manet, painting the everyday public (read as: prostitutes) when portraiture was meant to be reserved for the upper and middle class.
This doesn’t happen so much anymore, now that we’re all post-modern and up for anything. Then again, Australia did reject the Sensation exhibition of Young British Artists, and that wasn’t all that long ago.
But I digress…
The ‘creative force’
Sometimes I still think about the novel that I wrote on my life’s to do list when I was younger, and wonder whether I will ever seriously start writing it. Or, whether the ‘other’ aspect of myself will take over entirely and I won’t have time for such things. (Did I mention I’m a Gemini?)
And this is what I think it comes down to.
Not too long ago, I talked about an artist who works in iPhone street photography (his name is Misho Baranovic, if you recall). Baranovic’s work is so beautiful because he succeeds in capturing the beauty in everyday life.
In order to be an artist, you need, firstly, to be able to see the beauty in everyday life. This is step one. Step two involves the time and energy to do something with it. To take that feeling and hold on to it for long enough to produce something from it.
And you won’t be able to do this if your life is consumed by the little things.
