Artistic Accomplices

Getting started can often be difficult, and it can feel like we haven’t got any ideas. But often it’s the opposite, and we can be overwhelmed with too many choices. It’s very important that as we move forward with our creative endeavors that we learn to set limitations. It’s this act of limiting our materials and our ideas that our creativity can take off.

How do you get started? I answered this question a few episodes back, but I dive a bit deeper into the idea of play as a way to get started. Using ideas that John Cleese discussed in a talk on creativity, I discuss closed mode vs. open mode, and how I use play and experimentation to generate ideas and explore materials and concepts.

Feeling like the last podcast was a bit rambling, I want to come at this topic again, and see if I could wrap my head around this notion that the universe is indeed conspiring with us. I focus on the idea that positivity, generosity, and compassion bring about positive, generous, and compassionate results in our lives.

It might be the stuff of cheesy self-help books, but we create our reality with the thoughts, emotions, and attitudes, and we can choose the path of the cold-hearted and stingy or the path of the generous and kind.

I go in a bit of a ramble about how we can often feel that the universe is conspiring against us when in fact it works with us to create our reality. When we become aware of this relationship, we can move ourselves toward the life we want to live.

How do you get started?

It can be difficult getting started on any artistic endeavor — from procrastination and laziness to feelings of uncertainty and being overwhelmed. in this short episode, I share a small personal struggle with procrastination and give a bit of advice on how to get started on your personal creative journey.

We must make a commitment, play and explore, start small, and learn some of the basics.

I sat down with good friend and artist Steve Loya for this week’s podcast, and had a good conversation about making art, being kind, and not seeing life and art as a competition. I have known Steve for nearly 30 years having met as freshmen at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 1991. It has be great being an eye witness to Steve’s journey as an artist and an educator. I hope you enjoy the interview.

From Steve’s website: www.steveloya.com

Steve Loya is a true believer in the power of art and creativity and makes every effort to explore this in his own life. A Bachelor of Science in Art Education major from Edinboro University of PA, Steve's work is motivated by a strong desire to communicate and express visually something beyond words or spoken language, however serious or playful his approach and subject matter may be. His work has been exhibited in solo exhibits, juried and group shows, galleries and small businesses throughout the Northern Virginia region, DC, NV, PA, MD, NY as well as in Japan, Greece,and the UK. His work has also been featured and published in a handful of physical and online artist publications and books during the past decade. You can follow his work at his frequently updated art blogs, Go Flying Turtle, and Splotch Monster Island.

I conclude the discussion about creative blocks, as I delve deeper into the notion of attachment and how we cling to our identity, ideas, and materials as a way to stay in our comfort zone. We get in our own way by grasping at these notions and prevent ourselves from moving forward.

By being open to non-attachment we can become aware of our attachments to the past and the future and can stay focused on the present. Attachment can have us stuck in the mire, unable to move forward, but by recognizing those times when we grasp and cling, we can decide to act and get ourselves unstuck.

I continue the discussion about creative blocks, as I delve deeper into the notion of judgment. Our inner critic can rear it’s head anytime we create, and it can seem like it’s an endless loop of criticism. Unfortunately, it’s one of the ways the ego tries to convince us to stop creating and maintain the status quo.

Why do we diminish and denigrate ourselves so much as we criticize and condemn our creative endeavors? Only by becoming aware of this inner voice, can we lessen the self-defeating talk and stay present with our creativity. By opening ourselves for non-judgment and recognizing the truth about our skills and our creations can we diminish the grip our inner critic has on us.

I return to some topics from earlier episodes as I explore the creative block of Resistance and how we often get in our own way as we create. Though I discussed this a bit in the episode on Creative Blocks, I delve deeper and focus on how we may overcome this resistance.

By denying our creativity, by avoiding our creativity, and by staying trapped in our comfort zones, we resist our creativity and keep ourselves stalled and blocked. Only by becoming aware of those moments when we are resistant can we open ourselves and allow the creativity to flow.

It seems that there’s a lot of emphasis on the product over the process in many cart classes, whether you go into a public school art room or you go to the nearest art studio or art center. In part this push may come from our own personal experiences as students.

But how can we as educators, teaching artists, and students push ourselves away from the notion of a finished project and toward the notion of embracing the artistic process.

I delve into this topic in the latest episode and share some insight from my 20 years of teaching art in public schools as well as in the private sector of artists’ studios, art retreats, and art centers. I hope that as you explore your art that you can open to the process and not get so caught up in the end result — the product.