Breaking out of the old molds

I am spending much of my time getting ready for Thanksgiving, family arriving and the holiday season. My sister and I agreed that we would make gifts for one another this Christmas, rather than going out buying something that we weren’t sure the other person needed. So, I have been trying to think about what aspects of my life, my experience, or the work of my hands are really worth sharing with my sister’s family. It is a challenge to break out of the old Christmas mold.

A friend said: “oh, you’re an artist, that will be easy.” But it isn’t, because my artistic side seems to be resting right now, waiting for a new sense of meaning to animate it. I consider the situation of my fellow artists in this corner of the state. Most of them are getting ready for Christmas sales, making things large and small to take a guess at what the Christmas consumer would like. They need to make a living, and many enjoy the sense of conversation and appreciation that is aroused in their exchange with potential buyers. In previous years I would have been doing the same thing, applying for Christmas shows, getting things framed, making cards to sell, and so on. It just doesn’t make sense to me anymore, however.

As I was engaged in my preparations I listened to a talk by David Bohm, recorded and in the archives of New Dimensions radio. The talk is titled: “Creativity, Natural Philosophy and Science.” Bohm was a leading theoretical physicist who was also deeply interested in the human condition. In his radio conversation, Bohm said that the sense of rewards and punishments kills creativity. This immediately seemed true to my particular situation. The art world is a rewards and punishments system that has its own internal logic, but it’s often very different from whatever motivates the individual artist.

An artist in touch with her muse can create work that is commercially successful. I started my career as an artist making silk paintings. To my surprise, they started selling. After about five years as a silk painter I wanted to try some different forms of expression. My awkward new works were not welcomed in the small pools in which I introduced them. I kept working away, finding a voice and expression that made sense to me. Trying to take some of these creations and fit them into the rewards and punishment system of the art world felt like trying to put a round peg in a square hole. The system itself loomed as a seemingly insurmountable barrier to my moving forward.

Bohm said that the principal barrier to creativity is the mechanicalness which comes out of excessive thought. We keep thinking, thinking we can find solutions to the problems, but because of the mechanical quality of our thinking, we only encounter more problems. Bohm created a system of dialogue, which he saw as a way of breaking out of our rigidity. The point of dialogue is to look at our own assumptions as well as those of other people—and actually to find a way to suspend your own assumptions. Every once in a while I stumble into such a dialogue with another person, but it is rare indeed. It would be a creative act in itself, to hold our assumptions lightly enough to see them, and let them go in conversation. These kinds of conversations, whether through Bohmian dialogue, or a World Café, a Thought Leader Gathering or some other system, seem very attractive to me right now. I do see some new form of dialogue as being necessary to my creative process.