Getting Going
Publishing the agingartist blog has been gratifying. The more I publish, the more I feel motivated to address new topics.
As I ponder what to do, I stare out the window. My mind seems preoccupied as I contemplate the view. Is this procrastination or something else?
The Creative Process
Beginning a creative process seems chaotic. It starts with questions rather than answers. What am I curious about? What do I want to learn? What is making news in art?
From this cloud of questions come possibilities. How does technology influence art making? Are we oversaturated with imagery? What makes an image meaningful?
How do I turn these fuzzy thoughts into publishable material? That’s my problem.
Deduction and Induction
We use two thought processes, deduction and induction, to solve problems.
We often start with deduction: breaking a problem down into logical parts, then analysing each part for solutions. It’s like taking a motor apart and reassembling it with better components.
Perspiration or Inspiration
Sometimes a problem is unsolvable using deductive methods alone. We can hit a roadblock with no obvious way ahead. We get the urge to get up from the desk and pace around the room, or stare blankly out the window.
I was always puzzled by this urge to stop and take a break. I felt that I needed to think harder and to keep my nose to the grindstone until I cracked the problem. That approach often doesn’t work.
At an impasse we need to rethink the problem and consider unusual ‘outside the box’ possibilities . At this frustration point, we need to switch to inductive thinking.
Amnesia
To digress, consider what happens when we can’t recall a name. Suppose we forget the name of a person we haven’t seen in awhile, or the name of an old movie, book or song. Try as we might, we can’t remember that ##@$# name! When we give up trying and resume other activities, the forgotten name suddenly comes to mind. Ah ha!
Inspiration
Sometimes the unconscious part of me needs to take over the problem. It uses a myriad of circuits and processes that the conscious mind cannot access.
It takes time for the inductive process to digest the information in this unknowable way. That’s when the urge stop and stare out the window strikes. The subconscious mind is telling the deductive mind to go away. In the background while I am preoccupied with other things, my subconscious is fully engaged with the problem. When I am out on a walk, doing household chores, or at 4 am when I can’t sleep, a solution to will present itself, seemingly out of nowhere. Amazing and wonderful!
Is this inspiration at work? Unlike deductive thinking which follows a logical sequence of steps to a solution, inductive thinking or intuition is a mysterious process. It is the basis of creativity.
Deciding on topics for this blog requires retrieving information accumulated over a lifetime and buried in my memory. I need to relax and let the innate ‘Google’ inside of me find what I am looking for. The ‘light bulb’ will glow once the sunconscious mind is ready.
Intuition and Painting
Inductive thinking is a crucial ingredient of painting. We start with an vast number of options: what to paint and how to paint. We need to decide on topics, composition, medium, style, etc., etc. Our intuition makes some choices.
We start by deductively choosing colours and making marks .
Eventually these ideas are depleted. We pause and take a break while unconsciously thinking about the painting. A few hours or days later we return and see the painting with fresh eyes. This ‘deduce, pause, induce/ inspire’ cycle repeats over and over. The end product is often a surprise and not anything like our initial idea.
Here is a photograph that inspired a painting and the final landscape.
My idea of a productive day, as both a child and an adult, was reading for hours and staring out the window.“
Gail Caldwell
Inspiration Thwarted
Here is an interesting story about windows. I once worked at a research laboratory that had a beautiful outlook over the ocean with snow-covered mountains on the horizon.
Strangely, the large windows in every office were high on the wall so you could not see the marvelous view unless you were actually standing at the window.
I was told that the original laboratory manager had the building designed to prevent scientists from wasting time looking out the windows at the view. He must have been a deductive thinker and consequently quelled the creation of countless inspired ideas.
Looking out of windows is not procrastination: it is part of the creative process!
The results of my inductive contemplations will be evident in my future 2023 blog posts.
