A Demonstration of Creativity….
Out of all the assessment criteria, creativity is perhaps one of the most elusive to pin down. What characterises creativity? OCA refers to “imagination, experimentation, invention, development of a personal voice”, but the list could be much longer: problem solving, survival in adversity, coping with limitations, being resourceful.
Restrictive circumstances can motivate creative responses. This is to do with the inventive power of resilience that manifests itself with determination in creative minds, when faced with an obstacle: No money for paint or other art resources? No studio? Not enough time in the day? I am sure for many OCA students this strikes a chord. Yet an amazing number manage very well. Some even excel under such pressures. So James*, one of my students who currently serves a sentence in one of Her Majesty’s Prisons. Recently he informed me that access to other artist’s work was quite limited: one of the “limiting factor[s] is that the photocopies are in black and white and poor quality, but to look on the positive side on a few of them I have reproduced a small area of the painting and by doing so have probably learnt more about the style and techniques used than I would have done otherwise.” (Letter dated 21/8/14). But far from dull looking, the neatly written log is illustrated with handmade colourful illustrations. They open up a world of freedom and imagination.
This being far from the only limitation: needless to say, experiments in 360 degree panoramas of outdoor prison yards are not welcome in Her Majesty’s Prisons for good reasons. Security issues make many tasks impossible that most of us take for granted. Besides, due to cutbacks in prison services, educational services have become truncated. The possibility of rehabilitation through education is unfortunately not a priority in current thinking and funding. So severely restricted in primary and secondary resources, with limited access to expert tuition and no access to the Internet, I am constantly amazed by James’ resilience and creative drive. It would be interesting to hear from other students or tutors who have something to say about creativity in adverse situations?
Let me close with pointing to a different situation of censorship: during Nazi Germany the expressionist artist Emil Nolde was forbidden to paint, because his work was considered ‘degenerate’ (‘entartet’). Nolde resorted to replace oil colours with watercolours, and worked on Japanese printing papers (he was a formidable woodblock printmaker). This avoided giving away his practice through the unmistaken smell of oil media. The results are stunningly inventive: the absorbent quality of the paper soaks up the luminous watercolour like a sponge, and creates deep soft-edged pools of intense colour, bleeding into each other. Nolde called these ‘unpainted pictures’ (‘Ungemalte Bilder’). Despite my own misgivings about his political views – (Nolde’s mistaken initially sympathy with the National Socialist Party seems absurd and incomprehensible from a contemporary perspective) – I am compelled by his watercolours: unconventional, provocative, inventing a new purpose and language for a medium that can be more than a little stuck by its conventions.
For information on Nolde’s watercolours please see here
*James (not his real name)
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Doris, we shared the difficulties of working through my ill health. This restricted creativity a bit like your prisoner, in terms of physical and psychological factors. Working on a small drawing a day fulfilled several functions, but was a wonderfully enabling way of going forward. I’ll always remember this as a great way of working in series.
Cathie
Sure you did Cathie and working through ill health is another one of those amazing powerful things creativity enables us to do – see aging Matisse with his arthritic hands – nothing stopped him…. and we have wonderful ‘cut outs’ as a result…
D
Doris,
This is fascinating. Thanks for posting.
I have written something about creativity coming out of adverse conditions – not an adverse situation, exactly, but the adverse health or ‘mentality’ of panic attack syndrome.
Here’s the link:
http://longbarrowblog.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/the-a-bomb-of-adrenaline-matthew-clegg/
Matt Clegg
I just read through your blog Matthew, and I am in awe – about your openness, and also the way the panic attack becomes a cursed means to creative realisation. This is boundary pushing stuff, and of course some artists take huge risks in their lives. Some push the adrenalin aspect – I am thinking of Robert Smithson and his flying escapades, or of my supervisor Gerry Davies who goes potholing and then draws in the dark. In my own practice I am far more of a comfort bunny. But I have met students who really push, despite or because of of their mental conditions. I am always full of admiration for this, and I also realise another type of artist here from myself, someone who is taking risks, has to do what is necessary, regardless of any sense of comfort or healing.
Thank you Doris!
Quite often a student will ask us about how to get the most from their studies when there are constraints (financial or health for example) and it’s refreshing to show what can be done!
I cannot decide whether to offer sympathy to James or feel envious. Having spent a lot of time in prisons of all sorts during my life I know that the one thing that there is a lot of is time and solitude – time to think without interruption that living in the outside world become a rare event. I would have thought that the Courses offered by the OCA provide material and teaching that in many ways can overcome the difficulties of minimal contact with the outside world. I presume that there are others pursuing similar Courses which suggests the opportunity to discuss ideas and concepts at regular intervals with others. It is also my experience that there are many prisoners whose background, education and knowledge offer fresh insights into virtually any topic.
I wish James every success and whilst I am sure he would like to be anywhere than where he is his location is a rare opportunity to have a lot of ‘me’ time which is the best way to allow free thinking and creative imagination.
I cannot understand the reference to censorship mentioned in the article unless there are security considerations about sending out drawings of the internal layout of the prison. My experience of censorship in prisons is that it is very limited and presumably is even less so in light of the reduced manning levels in prisons at this time.
Hi Cedric
the reference about censorship comes from my own experience as ‘artist in residence’ (more of a teacher on a short term contract, and luckily the residential requirements were only in regard to teaching 🙂 ) in one of HMPs in UK. I taught drawing at that particular establishment, and the regulations were very tight. Presumably the degree of tightness varies depending on category of prison, and also location and management – so perhaps some of this explains the disparity of experience of your own? I agree that there is a lot of ‘me’ time in prison – not necessarily healthy however, to be going round in your own head all the time. It takes some constructive creative thinking to dedicate oneself to the objectives of a course which is often tailor made to conditions where people can roam freely in the landscape and urban environment, are encouraged to use the web for research, and to visit as many exhibitions as possible. By comparison the conditions I experienced when artist in residence were very restrictive to the prisoners: no web access, no visits out, limited access to materials, and to books, however some good art tuition by the regular teachers. But getting on the list for teaching could be a problem….. it’s interesting to hear from your perspective though, and yes, the time one has I am sure some of us in the ‘free world’ might be envious of…..
D
I find all this very interesting. And I understand completely how artists who have some sort of restriction may in fact find that the restriction leads into creativity. However, for the rest of us poor souls, artists and in my case writers, who are not in prison, nor suffer from panic attacks, we still need to find a source of creativity. Also, those of us who are tutors need to be able to recognise creativity whether it arises from fighting some sort of constriction, or from other sources. i think one of the main sources of creativity is, strangely enough, having to control the medium in which you are working. So for a writer, your creativity comes out of controlling words. So I go back to Theophile Gautier, the French poet, whose poetry I studied for A level, many years before I became a poet or a writing tutor:
Oui, l’œuvre sort plus belle
D’une forme au travail
Rebelle,
Vers, marbre, onyx, émail.
Yes, the work comes out more fair,
From a form that rebels against
Handling,
Verse, marble, onyx, enamel.
I don’t much like this translation found on the internet, but I have always been a slave to the idea. As tutors we can both help students to cope with difficult material and give them ways of handling or controlling that material. That is where creativity lies. We can’t give tutorials or assess finished pieces by referencing prison or other constrictions, or panic attacks.
As artists and tutors it is the “forme au travail/Rebelle” that we have to be concerned with.
Liz,
You say: ‘We can’t give tutorials or assess finished pieces by referencing prison or other constrictions, or panic attacks.’
What do you mean by ‘referencing’? I’m not sure I understand.
And who do you mean by ‘we’? Are you speaking for all of us?
As a tutor, I’ve ‘referenced’ both in my time – if referencing means ‘mentioning’, or ‘considering’, or ‘reflecting upon’.
M
I am lucky not to have experienced any serious illnesses or extreme hardships in my life, but can relate to working under limitations. When I had each of my children I was determined to carry on painting, despite having very little time. When each of them was a small baby I had two short two hour sessions a week in the studio I refused to give up. As soon as I came in the door I put on my overall and got started. I adopted a more direct approach which has stuck with me over the years. I started working in egg tempera, a medium that could not be corrected in the same way as oils. This forced me to be decisive. Now that I have more time I use oils and egg tempera and allow myself to ponder more, but I am sure I do use my time better and more creatively than I did when I was much younger.
Hi,
I was interested in reading this short piece. I am not fully convinced about the personal adversity argument as inspirational-creative source on its own (there is something a little mythical about the idea of the struggling artist about this), and feel that Liz’s comment about the challenge of the constraints of and balance between the craft/material/style/form/content and so on of the art discipline we choose is a central source of creative expression.
If I was to comment personally about constraints it would be less about physical-biological contexts of health and access to materials, and more about how my level of skill and continuing need to learn and stretch my craft (textiles and the need to improve my drawing to nurture that art-craft) limits the expression of my ideas. That and working full time in a non-creative job which blocks the creative flow of ideas and moments of creativity become glimmers that shine when solid time is set aside for thinking and making.
There is nothing mythical about the experience when it is happening to you.
Of course, I agree with Liz that there is always the artist’s relationship to resistant form. There is always the need for craft and technique when manipulating the medium we are working with.
Sometimes, however, craft and technique encounter resistance from more than just the artistic medium, and I’m fascinated to hear accounts of this. It is here, perhaps, that orthodox thinking is enriched by an addendum…
Here’s a link to a page that references Les Murray’s Killing the Black Dog – an essay and poems that deal with personal depression – and without self pity:
http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poems-book/killing-the-black-dog-0564000
Will add that to my to-read pile Matthew thank you – when I first came across reference to the “black dog” it was a bit of a light-bulb moment for me!
Hi Lorna, Matthew and all interested in this
not a myth as real examples of real people – ( though I personally find myths also very interesting in relation to creativity) – but to stick to the argument here – there is nothing mythological about people who have to overcome material shortages and restrictions, or situations of political censorship, but are determined to make work. In fact many political dissidents in the former Sowjetunion had to find ways of working in silence and against very difficult conditions. It says something about the drive of wanting to express creatively, despite conditions adverse, and therefore for me also dismantles the argument that creativity is a surplus condition for those who can afford it. In my own life I have certainly struggled with material needs and balancing work with creative ‘me’ time – still do like so many artists, learners whatever you want to call it. I would not always call that conducive towards creating new work, but the point of writing the blog was more about recognising how people manage, despite of, and that such power of resilience is astonishing, motivating and inspiring. On a different level, restrictions (in particular through subject, theme, brief, or materials) are often used in teaching art (hence the project brief, the topic, the question etc) in order to push students into new thinking. My first year students in a different place of work then OCA (I work in Higher Education main stream also) felt overwhelmed when we tutors offered them the whole freedom of the world to tackle their fine art practice. We recognised this as tutors and resorted back to giving students project briefs (= limitations). When students reach HE levels 5/ 6 they are often more mature, more confident to realise that they have to restrain themselves in scope, in research, even in exploring materials, in order to achieve. But then again this is a different type of restriction (self imposed) from one subjected to due to tutor/ curriculum and that again is different to material or political restriction for example…
“When students reach HE levels 5/ 6 they are often more mature, more confident to realise that they have to restrain themselves in scope, in research, even in exploring materials, in order to achieve.” Doris Rohr. What an enlightening quote! I now realise it’s my own self-confidence that stops me moving away from research and exploration onto the real artwork. At nearly 60 years old I hope I’m mature, but I find it so difficult to give myself permission to start creating for myself if I haven’t got ALL the information at hand. I’m already physically restricted by severe rheumatoid arthrits but I’ve managed to build myself a mental brick wall as well. I’m going to make a large poster of that quote and read it everyday until my thoughts are less self-destructive. Thanks, Doris.
I am feeling a bit flattered, thanks for thinking so positively about your own creativity and taking the blog in that vein – it was certainly intended as an encouragement to other students and artists, who for very different reasons may struggle to realise their own ambitions.
Doris I found your attached link to Nolde’s work very insightful. Not only did he persevere under restrictions in adulthood but also as a young boy. The link mentions that he was resourceful with little at a very young age using elderberry and beet juice for colours and bible pages for paintings. Although one of my favourite works by Nolde, ‘The prophet, 1912, is black and white his passion for the wider spectrum of colours is made evident in the article.
I particular like this quote from the article which emphasises the innate nature of painting.
“a painter does not need to know much; it is fine if he can spontaneously paint as purposefully as he breathes, as he walks.”
http://www.museum-frieder-burda.de/Emil-Nolde.971.0.html?&L=1
Doris,
That was really touching to read but I felt bolstered by the fact that James is winning. His creativity is not being stifled by his constraints and his work is all the more powerful for the restrictions placed upon him.
My studies are very much limited by my work, my recovery from acute ME and our finances but the latter, in my opinion, makes me more resourceful. When I did my Level 3 studies, I wanted my final piece to be made from glass but I couldn’t afford the kiln that would have been able to cope with the size of the piece so I made it from ice. I had to learn how to make clear ice (high temperature freezing in the fridge) but the effect was not diminished because of the change in material and it ended up adding another dimension to the work because I threw it into the sea when I had finished photographing it and documented it’s demise as it melted and floated away.
Coincidentally, my personal theme is “boundaries” so James’ story was particularly poignant.
Thank you,
Nicola
Lovely to read about your glass sculpture and letting go of holding on to materiality. Thanks for your reply, and apologies for late getting back. D
Thanks Rebecca, glad I have another Nolde fan here, and you did more in depth research on him then me… I was just keen to get a half way good hyperlink running for his images, as it is quite difficult to get them online. Yes I also really love Nolde’s woodcuts, perhaps even more than his watercolours.