I combined my responses for Lateral Thinking and Art & Fear.
I enjoyed reading about the art & fear chapter. It feels like a handbook for young artists that is intended to guide you through your career, or in general for everyone who are interested in creating without consuming yourself. Some of my take-away can be found below:
- Do not equate the product of your art as your whole person
- “learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive.”
- For makers, process matters, for viewers, result matters
Art comes from pain, politics, and struggles. In an ideal society (regardless of the regime), do we still have art? The arts that stay in my mind are always somehow related to tragedy, even the most loving and wholesome piece of art has an underlying tone of the fear of losing, social oppression, or emptiness.
Value the process = being effective and not being right
Sometimes it’s harder to hold it back than to let it flow. Delay in judgment is a tool to help you hold. It’s like eating slower helps you digesting better or walking slower may leads you to discover new things. Pacing yourself off can lead to better creations. I find the part on ‘practical application’ particularly helpful.
I feel like both the readings kind of shift away from the traditional definition of art-making. I’m not saying that they are not about art, rather, everything they talk about can be apply to the way people see the world in general. Maybe that’s why art therapy is so popular.