Academic Blog Response #2

I will be looking at Creative Act #7 and the article, "Who's afraid of a cognitive neuroscience?"

The painting has been on the back burner of my mind for a long time. Finally getting down to getting her out has taken a while as life distracts us so easily from some of our dearest goals.

That said, I will compare my work the article's outdated idea number 3: Creativity occurs in a state of defocused attention. The article goes on to say that this is true, but it does so in a state of focus. I have tested this to be true, through previous live improvisations, and this painting.

I like to think that when I perform certain creative acts, I am in a trance-like state. I am over-exaggerating, but I am relaxed and letting things flow. I am an improviser. I've learned how to accept and to return/make an offer. I've gone places onstage I've never considered, and I believe that building off of offers is what I do in my other creative genres. The painting itself is an example of this as I just started with one brush stroke and went from there. I discovered what I wanted to paint and where I could go with it with each stroke. I was focused enough to notice these painted offers and to accept them. Three behind the girl was one of those examples, I had no idea that I was going to outline it, but when my brushstroke ended right at its trunk I continued to do it again and again til it was outlined.

This proves what the article meant in its description of focus and defocused creativity. There is an active balance with the two. You need to be able to let the creativity to come out without any large analytical thought (which might plugged the process) and you must be focused enough to find the offers.

To discover where your creativity might take you.

Creative Act #7: Just A Start

This week I started a painting I've been planning for a long time.

I've been listening to a lot of Fever Ray (feverray.com) for the past couple of months. It has been informing so much of my work, and now it takes a foray into the visual arts.

I like finding the meanings in my work. Discovering it as I go along. This is no exception.
I haven't even found a meaning yet. The painting isn't done, but I have a corner, and that's all I usually do. I always have months between different paintings becoming finished. It's gradual.

Creative Act #6: The Wheel of Jack

This piece is written for the context of a larger conglomeration of others' works.
I have a thing for powerful beginnings and endings, and just started writing one.
Here you go:

(All this writing is ridiculously new for me).

The Wheel of Jack

Group: Ticks (Sporadically, like the counting game) as Audience enters. Group is sitting in a circle with their backs to each other. One has its armed raised in front of them. When the Audience is ready, the ticking stops. There is a communal breath, and then the One with its arm raised drops it as if to spin a while. Ticks start to travel clockwise around the group. Faster and Faster. Then slows down, and comes to a stop gradually. The member of the group who ends it says: Jack.

Beat. Group breathes in again, then the group rises. The three take a step into the circle. The One who began the wheel exits with the group following in sync and in tow.

1. Luck.

2. Chance.

3. Destiny

2. I’m not lucky. I don’t ever win anything. I have a dead end job, no one loves me. I work so hard. I never get ahead. I don’t have luck. But I work hard.

1. I got this magic rabbit’s foot from my papa. He killed the buggah himself.

2. Did I miss my chance?

3. I saw his heart through his eyes when I first saw him. He saw mine through mine, too. My heart was completely uncovered, which is strange for a person like me.

2. Luck doesn’t exist.

3. It really was one of those perfect moments when everything lines up. It was the perfect moment to fall in love.

1. My foot brings me so much luck and women. Oh, I get so lucky if you know what I mean.

3. It was destiny, really. I dropped my book, and BAM. There he was.

2. You don’t deserve that! You both didn’t even try.

1. Excuse me?

2. I’ve worked so hard for everything, and nothing falls in to my lap. You blame it on a foot, and you on destiny. Things like that never happen to regular people

3. But that’s what made us so special, we were never really that different.

1. You’re a bitter bugger, aren’t you?

2. You don’t deserve anything!

3. We talked for a good long time that night. His eyes were a deep blue, that sparkled like diamonds. It was mesmerizing.

1. Why are you judging me so hardcore man? I am what I am.

2. C’mon, really? I’m a better person than you. I work hard!

1. So what? That doesn’t make a difference. You just have to be born lucky, like me! And you’re lucky if you have a little faith.

3. He and I walked home that night, and we both knew then that we were going to be together forever.

2. Faith? FAITH? My life sucks because I don’t have faith?

1. You have to believe in something once and a while.

3. We did get married. We loved each other more than anyone could have loved each other. It was ridiculous in retrospect, but hey? Destiny…

2. What do you believe?

1. In horoscopes and this lucky charm.

2. The fucking stars and an amputated foot?

3. I guess he was meant to die.

1. Duh.

2. Die?

3. He died. And then it all went away.

2. I’m sorry to hear that.

3. It wasn’t meant to be. Wasn’t meant to be. Wasn’t meant to be.

1. Hey, it’s just unlucky, friend.

3. I’m just unlucky?

1. Isn’t that the truth of it?

3. It’s not that simple.

2. You can’t just shrug death off as being unlucky.

3. He died. That’s all there is. The way things go. It’s nobody’s fault.

1. Whatever lady. Look at it like that.

2. Shut up!

3. Its all I can believe.

2. You need to believe in something?

1. Then why not Luck?

2. Or that one Chance?

3. Or Destiny?

1. You know, maybe I’ll put it all in perspective for yah.

One becomes Scotty’s storyteller. Tells his story. At the end of his story the Two and Three return to the stage, stand in the triad.

2. So that was it?

3. Destiny.

1. You didn’t like the perspectives?

3. You throw us a curveball. He was everywhere.

2. Perspectives aren’t everything.

1. Just a rabbit’s foot and horoscopes. I’m a Pisces.

3. He was a lionhearted man.

2. What am I to you?

1. You’re just unlucky.

2. But I don’t believe in luck.

3. Its all in perspective. Maybe your luck is somewhere else, and you’re just waiting for her.

1. You put too much into love, lady.

3,. I’m just an unlucky, Lady Luck then?

2. Ye of too much faith.

1. It’s all perspective.

The tik-ing begins again. The group returns in three lines and converges behind each number. Then a resounding dinging begins (like winning the lottery), and they all return to the wheel, spin it again. And it lands on: Perspective. Everyone exits.