Essay: The Ideas of My World

My Environment and My Creativity



As a self-identified artist, I made a choice that creativity was the centrepiece of my life. It’s a beast I find that I have to feed. I read, see, and absorb as much as I can. Through this consumption, I am gifted with distinct images, symbols and words that I can not attribute to one force or influence. Although this new images that I receive from my subconscious are directly connected to the ideas that I have absorbed, I can instinctively feel its similarities and deviations from the ideas around me. The environment is being regurgitated into my creative work. I can attest that my creative process and inspiration are directly connected to my current environment.

William Stafford’s article, “A Way of Writing,” illustrates my own creative process quite well. I am in the beginnings of discovering my own process, but I have successfully tested the approach Stafford has illustrated in:

“A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have though of if he had not started to say them.” (Stafford 1)

In my writings, I have experimented and found that when I force a desired outcome to perpetuate itself on paper, it is bitter about it. It does not come out the way I intend or with any meaning. This is not the case when I take the Stafford approach. When I simply begin writing, the words flow and the world I create is stronger and deeper. I discover the metaphors and symbols within it, and know that I had not even considered them a possibility when I sat down to put them to the page. The words that have appeared also act as a mirror to the literature, dramatic, and other mediums I have absorbed within the past few weeks. Elements of graphic novella, television series, dance, and music all reveal themselves in my work, but they have been transformed.

My unconscious, or perhaps a collective unconscious, has rearranged and metamorphosed the ideas and meanings into a new conglomerate piece of art. Marie-Louise von Franz has elaborated on Jung’s theory of collective conscious versus the artist as it is the artist’s task to bring into form that which assaults him from the depths of the psyche, which is linked to the collective unconscious of the adjacent group of people to act as a healing effect on society (von Franz 122 + 125). I can apply this theory to my own work, and see links. A recent piece I wrote inadvertently explored a patriarchal figure’s loss of power, as his heir breaks a hole in the wall of their home and leaves, and soon a wife/servant figure regains her equality and leaves him decimated. Issues of parental control, patriarchal power, our society’s ideal of the house and home, and abuse of love were among the many issues explored as I read over it in retrospect. I had not intended to write about any of those issues. They are all relevant to the problems of society, so in this case I believe that my work had been influenced by the environment of the collective unconscious.

My art reflects society, but what of the self? James L. Tarrett has theorized through Jung a set of defining personalities that make up every artist. By Tarrett’s definitions I classify myself within the bounds of an introverted artists as, “… [I am] thought to be identified with [my] work and its creation” (Tarrett 23). This is classification is a weak one though, as on that same page he generalizes that extraverts write for themselves, and the introvert for himself. I do not write for anyone. This is all perspective work and on the limits of the environment. If you are required to write a paper, you are to write it your own argument; as literature is written for a variety of audiences. Generalizing who you are influencing, or who are you are healing. Art should reflect what needs to be said, and what needs to be said is not determined by you. It is a discovery. Your subconscious compiles everything you see and then directs you in the direction to put everything in the right order to reveal some kind of hidden truth.

My environment is made up of images, symbols, comedy, tragedy, love, and perspectives. My subconscious siphons these into my creativity. I can not work without any of these influences, yet I can work if I miss something. The beauty of this process that anything observed, actively or passing, is ripe for your work. Dreams are the subconscious expression of all of these, and art and dreams can not be separated. Dreams are said to be the process in which your body copes with the world around you, and the same is true for art. Art needs to reveal to the world its truths, and that makes being an artist so exciting. As long as you keep the barriers down, the possibilities for creation are endless.



Bibliography

von Franz, Marie-Louise. "Analytical Psychology and Literary Criticism". New Literary history, Vol. 12. no 1. Psychology and literature: Some contemporary Directions. August, 1980: 119-126.

Jarrett, James L.. "Personality and Creativity". Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 22, No. 4 Winter, 1988: 21-29.

Stafford, William. A Way of Writing.

Creative Act #5 - The Hole in the Wall

This week, I created a dramatic dialogue. It's a short scene that came out of nowhere for me. It is a symbol ridden piece, which I blame on The Ghost Sonata, a play by August Strindberg. The play is the go-to example of Symbolism for Theatre historians (thanks Theatre History Midterm!).

Although, It was interesting how it started. I wrote down a sentence, and then wrote a response to it, and it grew and grew. The hole metaphor was added the day after during the transfer to an electronic format. I was quite pleased with it, as my writing is usually not my favourite. It was nice to see I could do it.

The Hole in the Wall
Draft 1


L is sitting in a room awaiting for Daria, his servant.

L – Daria. Daria. Daria! Explain this hole. Daria enters through the audience

D – It’s bigger than I expected.

L – Daria. It’s chilly. Who broke through my wall?

D – Your son.

L – He would never disrespect me like this.

D – He needed to get out. He’s been inside for 18 years.

L – I don’t believe you.

D – He’s out there now.

L – He can’t go outside! He’ll ruin everything. He’s trying to break my back. leave me for dead.

D – You don’t get it. He wasn’t trying to hurt you.

L – No. I’ve lost it all I believed. All of it is crushed and burned.

D – Stop being overdramatic. Just let it go. Don’t you see anything? He needed to go. He still loves you.

L – By showing me how? By driving a stake –

D – Shut up! You put him in that position. You put him in a place where he had no future. You made him to fight for you. His life has been waiting around for you to show him his future. He only wanted to succeed in a world, in YOUR world. It was the most important thing for him. He chose to leave you. He had no choice. He couldn’t stay and remain yours. It’s impossible to not change. You gave him all your power.

L – I did, didn’t I? I need him back. Go get him.

D – No.

L – Don’t deny me this. Look how helpless I am. My power is seeping through that hole!

D – He’s gone. Jack took him.

L – Jack? But…

D - Jack came back, and he took him. They’re both gone. Your wall is rubble.

L – Daria. The bastard Jack took my son. That fucking disgusting Jack has stolen my boy?

D – Lord… please.

L – Jack! Daria, bring me my son!

D – It’s not that easy.

L – You won’t do it will you?

D – No. Lord.

L – It’s Jack, isn’t it? You can’t love him. You love me. I made you that way.

D – You’ve almost lost me entirely. The hole is getting larger.

L – I can’t feel you. Staggers to Daria slowly, methodically You are faint. You didn’t tell me. Why didn’t you tell me?

D – You forgot me. Jack loved me.

L – Bring me my son, Daria.

D – No. Be quiet. You are losing all of your masonry.

L - Pushes. Exerts strength on Daria You will not finish me. Jack has touched you, but I created your heart.

D – But I’m taking control. You put me in this place just like your son. Ow. Let me go.

L – This is all I have left.

D – Please… I’m…

L – Trapped. Daria struggles. Fights back. Starts stealing the Lord’s own power.

D – This is mine now.

L – I started this. I will end it. This cycle is mine. It doesn’t end through anyone but me. You don’t have choices.

D – You left me. I deviated. I grew. And now your part of me has grown and changed. I am different now.

L – Built from scratch. The effort. The life.

D – Your son has left you! I have left you! Now you have nothing, and feel nothing. What can I promise you? What can I give you?

L – Daria.

D – Feel your house crumble and fall.

L – Help me rebuild.

D – I am going through the wall. Daria looks back, then exits through the hole

Book Response: Philip Roth's Everyman

We’re All An Everyman

“I think this had better be all there is. Going on and on, remembering still more… but why not remember?” (11)

Everyman is a story of great pain and joy to me. Being so young was put into an eerie perspective by the end of the novel. My life is illustrated by such blessings and ease that Everyman brought my own future into a wider range of perceptible possibilities. I question(ed): mortality, death, life, pain, love, my health, and the point of everything.
I was able to comprehend one thing:
Don’t fuck up.


The novel serves the same purpose as the original medieval play. It acts as an instructional guide. The play’s goal was that of showing you how to better your own life. The book follows suit. You identify with the unnamed man, who is not really that different from you or I.
Who was he? Was he me or was he you?
Is this our lives?

This character fights his death and his life. He loves and mistakes. And he feels so much pain. He is perceptible to jealousy; he is not a hero.
Our ages change everything. His experience seem foreign and impossible to me at first. I tell myself I will not demonstrate his weaknesses, I will live my life right, correctly, and happily go into the grave, a life well lived. But, as the novel comes to an end, no one dies happy for the grave. They all have their own circumstances and pain that surprised and saddened them and the world.
I want a happy ending.

“During the night, when he had awakened to see the forms behind the curtain, he couldn't help but think, The doctors are killing him.” (28)

“In that moment of terror when they lowered the ether mask over his face as though to smother him, he could have sworn the surgeon, whoever he was, had whispered, "Now I'm going to turn you into a girl."” (29)

I loved these paragraphs, and their ideas.
Idle fears, dismissed by our age; we learn that these aren’t possible. Doctor’s don’t kill or cut for sadistic reasons.
But what makes these quotes so beautiful is the fear. It’s pure, undiluted or weak fear. These thoughts are inhibited once you reach an age. The eyes of a child see differently. There are boogey-men. There is magic. And Death is just a monster. We can slay monsters, and this is a truth, too. We fight death, but as everyman searches for his own survival he brings into question his ideals. Why are you alive? What strength is required to actually go into death’s realm?

A world where everyone is the same.
He isn’t strong enough to die. Yet, when he’s ready to live and fight again with renewed vigour, he loses it all. His life ends so suddenly. It is a tragedy.

"’When am I going to get out of here? I'm missing the fall of 1967." The surgeon listened soberly, and then, with a smile, he said, "Don't you get it yet? you almost missed everything?"’(41)

I don’t think he was able to see the possibilities in his future or the blessings of his past, but maybe he suffers like all of us?
We’re preoccupied, and the book proves this, with normalcy and maintaining our routine. The quote above illustrates how the everyman did not see the blessing in front him, by his requirement to trudge on.
Is that my position?
Death, are you testing us?
DEATH
“…It’s because it is for her as it is for everyone. It’s because life’s most disturbing intensity is death. It’s because death is so unjust. It’s because once one has tasted life, death does not even seem natural.” (169)


There are so many different points of view.
Death is necessary and death is here. But, it isn’t natural anymore, is it? We want to fight it. We don’t believe death.

“In a matter of minutes, everybody had walked---wearily and tearfully walked away from our species’ least favourite activity—and he was left behind. Of course, as when anyone dies, though many were grief-stricken, others remained unperturbed or found themselves relieved, or, for reasons good or bad, were genuinely pleased.” (15)

We (don’t) want to say goodbye.
Or prove that we are (im)penetrable.
Or maybe, we want satisfaction.

I’d like to say goodbye to Everyman. He lived a life, albeit fictional. But all fiction comes from reality. We are meant to see ourselves in his struggle.

“He was no more, freed from being, entering into nowhere without even knowing it. Just as he'd feared from the start.” (182)

Just when you’re ready, it all goes to shit.
Don’t just sit there, MOVE IT!




Bibliography:

Roth, Philip. "Everyman." Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006

Creative Act #4 - Binder

My act this week is:

I am currently an electrician for Problem Child at the Phoenix. I am in charge of making sure everything that needs electricity on the set has it, and of course, all of the lights.

When I am in my Lighting mode for shows, I am required/love creating a binder. Well, organizing one. I put a lot of effort into each section. I have a goal of beauty to, and cherish the binder and its information deeply. I feel this is creative because I choose what information is categorized and how it is presented, and find a joy that surpasses it being just work.

*Pictures to posted asap.