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.
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