PARTICIPATE! EXPLORING THE CREATIVE PROCESS
What does it mean to be a part of the process? If things are processed for you and systematically replicated is this advantageous or does it ruin the experience? This website and art exhibit, Participate: Exploring the Creative Process, was created and developed as a final research project for my Spring Semester English 2089 Composition class with Professor Kevin Oberlin. This project examines the idea of process and its effect on us as people through food, art, and community, paying close attention to the connections made between the process of making food and the process of making art.
Throughout the semester we read, studied and analyzed various texts about food. Using this common theme we synthesized ideas across media, genres, and arguments, paying close attention to the way texts interpret, assess and write within a variety of genres. We studied how meaning is made communicated and debated, within a given discourse community and reflecting on connections among ideas within the course and our own academic, personal, social, and professional lives. We reflected upon on how affective these clear, organized texts were to their appropriate situations, purposes and audiences (ENGL 2089 course syllabus).
As a painter, I am greatly inspired by the works that we’ve read this semester and the way in which we’ve approached the material. I’ve been spurred on to investigate a few additional sources as a result, especially regarding the creative process. One of the areas I am particularly interested in is how our awareness or lack of awareness about the human participation in the process of creating and consuming affects our feelings of belonging and fellowship. There is something bigger going on here than what initially meets the eye. I am reminded too of other books I’ve read about creativity and how the link between an understanding of these things effects both the artist (maker) and the consumer (eater/viewer/buyer) can affect the experience.
It would be impossible to narrow down all the influences in a short reflective essay, as I am sure there are many that bore some influence on the final project. There are however a few of the books that I would like to highlight here.
In The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, for example, Michael Pollan’s illustration of being part of the process of attaining his food and even just learning about where it came from changed his entire experience about food. He goes so far as to say that, if we knew about our food, “where it came from” and “how it found its way to our table,” then “we would no longer need any reminding that however we choose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we’re eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world (pg. 411). It is clear throughout the book that he feels a connection between the process of attaining food and consuming it. There are also a few subtle nods, especially near the end of the book, to feelings of belonging and fellowship that arise as a result of participating in the process of attaining food.
Even something like looking at the quirky tools we use expresses our joy in the participation of the preparation of our food. In Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, Bee Wilson explains that even though the Cuisinart helped to "transform cooking from pain to pleasure" she confesses that she still uses "obsolete" or needlessly labor-intensive tools such as the mortar and pestle to grind her basil and garlic to make pesto. It is the participation and awareness of what it takes for something to be made that increases one’s enjoyment factor.
David Lynch’s takes a good look at this phenomenon in his book, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity:
"If you have a golf-ball-sized consciousness, when you read a book, you'll have a golf-ball-sized understanding; when you look out a window, a golf-ball-sized awareness, when you wake up in the morning, a golf-ball-sized wakefulness; and as you go about your day, a golf-ball-sized inner happiness. But if you can expand that consciousness, make it grow, then when you read about that book, you'll have more understanding; when you look out, more awareness; when you wake up, more wakefulness; as you go about your day, more inner happiness." (pg. 28)
In Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, David Bayles and Ted Orland spend a great deal of time writing about how the process of making art is most important to the maker, not necessarily the viewer or the buyer. They also reflect in a number of places on how when the art maker works on his process, good work gets made and that it is from this place that others are attracted to the work. They emphasize the importance of artists supporting one another in the field. “Only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art.” The book goes on to examine the emotional and spiritual involvement of an artist and looks at the fear and courage involved in moving forward regardless of the viewer/consumer. Art & Fear places the responsibility of caring about such matters squarely on the shoulders of the artist.
Another book on creativity that delves deeply into these matters is The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. “Focused on process, our creative life retains a sense of adventure. Focused on product, the same creative life can feel foolish or barren. We inherit the obsession with product and the idea that art produces finished products from a consumer oriented society... Every time we do this, we are blocked.” Throughout the book, the process of doing art, any art, even bad art is emphasized. For it is in the process that we learn where our next piece is coming from.
In preparation for writing this final reflective essay, I spent some time reading through all of my previous reflective essays. It was very interesting to see the different examples of writing styles for the wide variety of purposes. While all of the papers had Professor Oberlin as one of the audience members (afterall I was turning it in for a grade), it was obvious that the subject matter of the essays also drove their form. Furthermore, while all of them were written in MLA format, the further along we went as a class in discussing knowledge of conventions, the more defined the guidelines became with each essay.
For example, my first essay, the Genre Reflective Essay, was very formal, while with the next one, Audience and Purpose, was more casual, using stream of consciousness writing. Knowing that the class would be peer reviewing the second one, I chose to use jargons and patterns of discourse that were aimed at the class as a whole, so that it might be a more interesting read. Both of these essays looked at the rhetorical knowledge we had been reading about on blackboard, examining the texts we had been reading with an open mind. With the third reflection, though the tone was still a bit casual, there were more concise examples from the texts we had been reading and a clear movement toward synthesizing the knowledge with beginning to create the final project. The purpose of the checkpoints drove the content for the last few assignments.
Throughout this semester I have been documenting my artmaking process while preparing for the Essex Artwalk. I love to listen to music when I paint. For this final project, I brought my turntable down to the studio, made sure to document my painting process including writing lyrics from some songs I listen to while painting. Click here to view an infograph that simplifies my process. You can find process pictures and videos on the “Gallery.”
It is my hope that sharing this information might have a positive effect on those visiting the exhibit and that the knowledge of the process makes the exhibit more interesting to the viewer. I hope that someone viewing the finished product might feel a stronger human connection to it because of the awareness. Mostly, I hope to inspire others to participate fully in their own everyday endeavors, pay close attention to those things that matter to them and share the process so that in actively being part of the process our feelings of belonging and fellowship grow stronger.
I truly believe that the more we understand, the more awareness we have surrounding where our food (and art) comes from and the higher our level of participation in the processing, preparing of it or even the awareness of the preparation process, the stronger the bond of community and fellowship.
Like with the food community, the more connected we feel to the participation and understanding of the rituals, tools, languages, in short the social discourse, of the community, the greater the sense of community and higher the enjoyment factor and fulfillment as human beings when we participate in the process. Even if that participation is simply a greater understanding of the process.
These understandings connect us as human beings, or in a sense, as spiritual beings having a human experience. By sharing these experiences with each other, we create a deeper understanding of the process, common ground and a fellowship in which to share in the process of these basic human need to create and participate. The more we participate in the process the greater the sense of belonging we have within the community.
WORKS CITED
Addonizio, Kim and Dorianne Laux. The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd. 1997. Print.
Bayles, David and Ted Orland. Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. St. Paul: Image Continuum, 2004. Print.
Bourdain, Anthony. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. New York: Ecco, 2012. Print.
Cameron, Julia The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. London: Pan / Macmillian, 1994. Print
Fig, Joe. Inside the Painter’s Studio. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. Print.
Lynch, David. Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006. Print.
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
Macpherson, Kevin D. Landscape Painting - Inside and Out. New York: North Light Books, 2009. Print.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Print.
Spurlock, Morgan. Supersized: Strange Tales from a Fast-food Culture. Milwaukee, Or.: Dark Horse, 2011. Print.
“Understanding Genre.” Visual Presentation About Genre. Blackboard (University of Cincinnati) Intermediate Composition (101) ENGL 2089. Spring 2014.
van Gogh, Vincent, Ronald de Leeuw (editor) and Arnold J Pomerans (translator). The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. London: Penguin Books, 1998. Print.
Werner, Kenny. Effortless Mastery: LIberating the Master Musician Within. New Albany, Indiana: Jamey Aebersold Jazz, 1996. Print and CD.
Wilson, Bee. Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat. New York: Basic, 2012. Print.
What does it mean to be a part of the process? If things are processed for you and systematically replicated is this advantageous or does it ruin the experience? This website and art exhibit, Participate: Exploring the Creative Process, was created and developed as a final research project for my Spring Semester English 2089 Composition class with Professor Kevin Oberlin. This project examines the idea of process and its effect on us as people through food, art, and community, paying close attention to the connections made between the process of making food and the process of making art.
Throughout the semester we read, studied and analyzed various texts about food. Using this common theme we synthesized ideas across media, genres, and arguments, paying close attention to the way texts interpret, assess and write within a variety of genres. We studied how meaning is made communicated and debated, within a given discourse community and reflecting on connections among ideas within the course and our own academic, personal, social, and professional lives. We reflected upon on how affective these clear, organized texts were to their appropriate situations, purposes and audiences (ENGL 2089 course syllabus).
As a painter, I am greatly inspired by the works that we’ve read this semester and the way in which we’ve approached the material. I’ve been spurred on to investigate a few additional sources as a result, especially regarding the creative process. One of the areas I am particularly interested in is how our awareness or lack of awareness about the human participation in the process of creating and consuming affects our feelings of belonging and fellowship. There is something bigger going on here than what initially meets the eye. I am reminded too of other books I’ve read about creativity and how the link between an understanding of these things effects both the artist (maker) and the consumer (eater/viewer/buyer) can affect the experience.
It would be impossible to narrow down all the influences in a short reflective essay, as I am sure there are many that bore some influence on the final project. There are however a few of the books that I would like to highlight here.
In The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, for example, Michael Pollan’s illustration of being part of the process of attaining his food and even just learning about where it came from changed his entire experience about food. He goes so far as to say that, if we knew about our food, “where it came from” and “how it found its way to our table,” then “we would no longer need any reminding that however we choose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we’re eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world (pg. 411). It is clear throughout the book that he feels a connection between the process of attaining food and consuming it. There are also a few subtle nods, especially near the end of the book, to feelings of belonging and fellowship that arise as a result of participating in the process of attaining food.
Even something like looking at the quirky tools we use expresses our joy in the participation of the preparation of our food. In Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, Bee Wilson explains that even though the Cuisinart helped to "transform cooking from pain to pleasure" she confesses that she still uses "obsolete" or needlessly labor-intensive tools such as the mortar and pestle to grind her basil and garlic to make pesto. It is the participation and awareness of what it takes for something to be made that increases one’s enjoyment factor.
David Lynch’s takes a good look at this phenomenon in his book, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity:
"If you have a golf-ball-sized consciousness, when you read a book, you'll have a golf-ball-sized understanding; when you look out a window, a golf-ball-sized awareness, when you wake up in the morning, a golf-ball-sized wakefulness; and as you go about your day, a golf-ball-sized inner happiness. But if you can expand that consciousness, make it grow, then when you read about that book, you'll have more understanding; when you look out, more awareness; when you wake up, more wakefulness; as you go about your day, more inner happiness." (pg. 28)
In Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, David Bayles and Ted Orland spend a great deal of time writing about how the process of making art is most important to the maker, not necessarily the viewer or the buyer. They also reflect in a number of places on how when the art maker works on his process, good work gets made and that it is from this place that others are attracted to the work. They emphasize the importance of artists supporting one another in the field. “Only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art.” The book goes on to examine the emotional and spiritual involvement of an artist and looks at the fear and courage involved in moving forward regardless of the viewer/consumer. Art & Fear places the responsibility of caring about such matters squarely on the shoulders of the artist.
Another book on creativity that delves deeply into these matters is The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. “Focused on process, our creative life retains a sense of adventure. Focused on product, the same creative life can feel foolish or barren. We inherit the obsession with product and the idea that art produces finished products from a consumer oriented society... Every time we do this, we are blocked.” Throughout the book, the process of doing art, any art, even bad art is emphasized. For it is in the process that we learn where our next piece is coming from.
In preparation for writing this final reflective essay, I spent some time reading through all of my previous reflective essays. It was very interesting to see the different examples of writing styles for the wide variety of purposes. While all of the papers had Professor Oberlin as one of the audience members (afterall I was turning it in for a grade), it was obvious that the subject matter of the essays also drove their form. Furthermore, while all of them were written in MLA format, the further along we went as a class in discussing knowledge of conventions, the more defined the guidelines became with each essay.
For example, my first essay, the Genre Reflective Essay, was very formal, while with the next one, Audience and Purpose, was more casual, using stream of consciousness writing. Knowing that the class would be peer reviewing the second one, I chose to use jargons and patterns of discourse that were aimed at the class as a whole, so that it might be a more interesting read. Both of these essays looked at the rhetorical knowledge we had been reading about on blackboard, examining the texts we had been reading with an open mind. With the third reflection, though the tone was still a bit casual, there were more concise examples from the texts we had been reading and a clear movement toward synthesizing the knowledge with beginning to create the final project. The purpose of the checkpoints drove the content for the last few assignments.
Throughout this semester I have been documenting my artmaking process while preparing for the Essex Artwalk. I love to listen to music when I paint. For this final project, I brought my turntable down to the studio, made sure to document my painting process including writing lyrics from some songs I listen to while painting. Click here to view an infograph that simplifies my process. You can find process pictures and videos on the “Gallery.”
It is my hope that sharing this information might have a positive effect on those visiting the exhibit and that the knowledge of the process makes the exhibit more interesting to the viewer. I hope that someone viewing the finished product might feel a stronger human connection to it because of the awareness. Mostly, I hope to inspire others to participate fully in their own everyday endeavors, pay close attention to those things that matter to them and share the process so that in actively being part of the process our feelings of belonging and fellowship grow stronger.
I truly believe that the more we understand, the more awareness we have surrounding where our food (and art) comes from and the higher our level of participation in the processing, preparing of it or even the awareness of the preparation process, the stronger the bond of community and fellowship.
Like with the food community, the more connected we feel to the participation and understanding of the rituals, tools, languages, in short the social discourse, of the community, the greater the sense of community and higher the enjoyment factor and fulfillment as human beings when we participate in the process. Even if that participation is simply a greater understanding of the process.
These understandings connect us as human beings, or in a sense, as spiritual beings having a human experience. By sharing these experiences with each other, we create a deeper understanding of the process, common ground and a fellowship in which to share in the process of these basic human need to create and participate. The more we participate in the process the greater the sense of belonging we have within the community.
WORKS CITED
Addonizio, Kim and Dorianne Laux. The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd. 1997. Print.
Bayles, David and Ted Orland. Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. St. Paul: Image Continuum, 2004. Print.
Bourdain, Anthony. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. New York: Ecco, 2012. Print.
Cameron, Julia The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. London: Pan / Macmillian, 1994. Print
Fig, Joe. Inside the Painter’s Studio. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. Print.
Lynch, David. Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006. Print.
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
Macpherson, Kevin D. Landscape Painting - Inside and Out. New York: North Light Books, 2009. Print.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Print.
Spurlock, Morgan. Supersized: Strange Tales from a Fast-food Culture. Milwaukee, Or.: Dark Horse, 2011. Print.
“Understanding Genre.” Visual Presentation About Genre. Blackboard (University of Cincinnati) Intermediate Composition (101) ENGL 2089. Spring 2014.
van Gogh, Vincent, Ronald de Leeuw (editor) and Arnold J Pomerans (translator). The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. London: Penguin Books, 1998. Print.
Werner, Kenny. Effortless Mastery: LIberating the Master Musician Within. New Albany, Indiana: Jamey Aebersold Jazz, 1996. Print and CD.
Wilson, Bee. Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat. New York: Basic, 2012. Print.