Creativity
14/11/15 05:14
I don’t think of myself as an artist. I never developed skills in drawing. I’ve tried several different artistic media from watercolors to pottery, but never stuck with any of those expressions long enough to even become competent, let alone good at the skills and techniques required to make beautiful objects. I do, however, have several creative outlets that allow me to express myself in ways that are different than words. I studied photography back in the 1970’s and have had access to quality cameras for most of my life. When I have time I enjoy taking pictures, especially nature photographs. I have a large collection of photos of sunrises over water. In recent years I have taken a waterproof camera with me on virtually every paddle and pause to take a few pictures each time I am on the water.
My paddling reflects another craft that gives me artistic expression. I make woodstrip boats, both canoes and kayaks. I made my first canoe simply because it was a less expensive way to obtain a boat. I continue to make boats because I enjoy the process. It seems that each boat I make is a bit more elaborate than the previous one. I’ve experimented with different techniques, making a skin-on-frame kayak and a plywood lapstrake row boat. I prefer woodstrip boats, though I have noticed that my processes are slowing down. It takes me more time to complete a finished boat than was the case a couple of decades ago.
Still, I don’t expect to ever display my creative efforts in a gallery or museum. I make things for my own enjoyment and use and occasionally share them in my blog or on a paddle with friends. People have asked me if I sell boats, but I’ve never sold a boat of my own making and have no plans to turn my hobby into an income source.
I am, however, very interested in the creative process and how people learn to produce art. Artistic creativity bears some connections with the creativity that is employed to solve problems and come up with new alternatives. Furthermore, creativity is a mode of relationship with God. The book of Genesis teaches that humans are made in the image of God - creatures endowed with the ability to create.
David Bayles and Ted Orland have written a book about making art that has gained a lot of recognition outside of the community of professional artists. “Art and Fear” is an exploration of art as a human enterprise for common folk rather than a treatise on rare genius. In the introduction, they write:
"This is a book about making art. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially—statistically speaking—there aren't any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place. For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius."
In their book they tell of a ceramics teacher who announced on the opening day of class that he was dividing the students into two groups. Half were told that they would be graded on quantity. On the final day of term, the teacher said he'd come to class with some scales and weigh the pots they had made. They would get an "A" for 50lb of pots, a "B" for 40lb, and so on. The other half would be graded on quality. They just had to bring along their one, pristine, perfectly designed pot.
The results were not what I would have expected. The works of highest quality, the most beautiful and creative designs were all produced by the group graded for quantity. Essentially that group kept trying and learning from their mistakes while the other group focused on thinking about how to make a perfect pot, but didn’t gain skills from churning out pot after pot. Productivity allowed for a much more rapid rate of learning than a semester invested in making a single high quality work of art.
There are plenty of other stories of significant discoveries and products coming from the hard work of simply producing products every day. British inventor James Dyson claims to have produced 5,126 failed prototypes before coming up with his now famous design for a coal cyclone vacuum cleaner. The machine didn’t come to him in a flash of inspiration. It came as the result of day after day of working on a project, making thousands of mistakes and coming back to try again the next day.
When we think of advances in human culture, we often think of stories like Archimedes shouting “eureka” or Newton being hit on the head with an apple and instantly inventing the theory of gravity. The problem with these stories is that they are pure fiction. The human brain doesn’t work that way at all. The moment of insight is just part of the process. It comes after hours and hours - usually years and years - of working on problems and wondering about alternative solutions. The stories of Archimedes and Newton don’t dwell on what happened before the insights occurred. A lifetime of wondering and working often precedes a moment of revelation.
A few years ago we heard Dr. Charles Townes, Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was instrumental in the development of modern lasers. He was in his 90’s at the time and reflecting on the process of developing his breakthrough discovery. He spoke eloquently about the moments of insight. What he didn’t talk about was there quarter of a century between his earning his PhD and being awarded the Nobel Prize or the half century he served on the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley. The moment of insight was preceded by decades of work. And, I suspect, by more failures than successes.
Creativity is not avoiding mistakes, but being bold enough to keep one learning through the mistakes in pursuit of a better idea.
My paddling reflects another craft that gives me artistic expression. I make woodstrip boats, both canoes and kayaks. I made my first canoe simply because it was a less expensive way to obtain a boat. I continue to make boats because I enjoy the process. It seems that each boat I make is a bit more elaborate than the previous one. I’ve experimented with different techniques, making a skin-on-frame kayak and a plywood lapstrake row boat. I prefer woodstrip boats, though I have noticed that my processes are slowing down. It takes me more time to complete a finished boat than was the case a couple of decades ago.
Still, I don’t expect to ever display my creative efforts in a gallery or museum. I make things for my own enjoyment and use and occasionally share them in my blog or on a paddle with friends. People have asked me if I sell boats, but I’ve never sold a boat of my own making and have no plans to turn my hobby into an income source.
I am, however, very interested in the creative process and how people learn to produce art. Artistic creativity bears some connections with the creativity that is employed to solve problems and come up with new alternatives. Furthermore, creativity is a mode of relationship with God. The book of Genesis teaches that humans are made in the image of God - creatures endowed with the ability to create.
David Bayles and Ted Orland have written a book about making art that has gained a lot of recognition outside of the community of professional artists. “Art and Fear” is an exploration of art as a human enterprise for common folk rather than a treatise on rare genius. In the introduction, they write:
"This is a book about making art. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially—statistically speaking—there aren't any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place. For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius."
In their book they tell of a ceramics teacher who announced on the opening day of class that he was dividing the students into two groups. Half were told that they would be graded on quantity. On the final day of term, the teacher said he'd come to class with some scales and weigh the pots they had made. They would get an "A" for 50lb of pots, a "B" for 40lb, and so on. The other half would be graded on quality. They just had to bring along their one, pristine, perfectly designed pot.
The results were not what I would have expected. The works of highest quality, the most beautiful and creative designs were all produced by the group graded for quantity. Essentially that group kept trying and learning from their mistakes while the other group focused on thinking about how to make a perfect pot, but didn’t gain skills from churning out pot after pot. Productivity allowed for a much more rapid rate of learning than a semester invested in making a single high quality work of art.
There are plenty of other stories of significant discoveries and products coming from the hard work of simply producing products every day. British inventor James Dyson claims to have produced 5,126 failed prototypes before coming up with his now famous design for a coal cyclone vacuum cleaner. The machine didn’t come to him in a flash of inspiration. It came as the result of day after day of working on a project, making thousands of mistakes and coming back to try again the next day.
When we think of advances in human culture, we often think of stories like Archimedes shouting “eureka” or Newton being hit on the head with an apple and instantly inventing the theory of gravity. The problem with these stories is that they are pure fiction. The human brain doesn’t work that way at all. The moment of insight is just part of the process. It comes after hours and hours - usually years and years - of working on problems and wondering about alternative solutions. The stories of Archimedes and Newton don’t dwell on what happened before the insights occurred. A lifetime of wondering and working often precedes a moment of revelation.
A few years ago we heard Dr. Charles Townes, Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was instrumental in the development of modern lasers. He was in his 90’s at the time and reflecting on the process of developing his breakthrough discovery. He spoke eloquently about the moments of insight. What he didn’t talk about was there quarter of a century between his earning his PhD and being awarded the Nobel Prize or the half century he served on the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley. The moment of insight was preceded by decades of work. And, I suspect, by more failures than successes.
Creativity is not avoiding mistakes, but being bold enough to keep one learning through the mistakes in pursuit of a better idea.