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When did you last stumble upon such words of encouragement?
Is
Fig.1. Words of encouragement
Isn’t this all that we need? Someone who believes?
(On the inside of a folder of ‘creative writing’ from my teens – short stories, a novel, a TV screenplay, poems and lyrics. Lyrics that the author of these words put to music).
Don’t tell me I am not still that 19 year old.
This is the human condition.
Days before my mother died, with barely any faculties functioning I span her through grabs of famous artworks on an iPad – her last cogniscent words were ‘Louvre, Paris’ while all but my sister and I say a dead person waiting to die.
Creativity is improvisation … Edmund de Waal on pots, netsuke, writing and his desert island discs
Fig 1. Pots, Writing, Music and on being a Smarty Pants
Listen to it for yourself. What intrigued me where his thoughts on the creative process.
Edmund de Waal
Desert Island Discs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01p067p
Sunday 25th November 2012
On describing his pots
“Rigorous but humane – I’d like that on my gravestone if possible”.
“The rest of the world falls away”.
“The challenge is always the same, what are you going to do next?”
On a very particular recording of Ella Fitzgerald – Mack the Knife – forgetting the words and improvising.
Ella FitzGerald sings : “What’s the next chorus to this song now. It’s the one – I don’t know. It’s a swing song, that’s the tune … Something about Louis Miller and something about cash … tell me … ”
“This is music as it should be. This is making it up as you go along. This matters to me because this is what the experience of making things is like. That’s improvisation. That’s when when you think you’ve got it made before you start. And then … it all goes … it doesn’t go wrong – it goes different. And then you have to … then you’re alive. That’s the moment of absolute aliveness. Which is what music is about … and about what I do is about”.
A course on creativity could be constructed from interviews and music featured on Desert Island Discs. Like any frustrated creative I listen to this and find myself turning to a short story or a sheet of cartridge paper.
(A netsuke of the kind Edmund de Waal shows Kirsty Young, a signed piece from the early 18th century, is likely to be worth £10,000 to £12,000.).
I prefer invention over recreation.
Others I’ve caught on Desert Island Discs include
Another potter, form whom ‘creativity is mistakes’.
Related articles
- Mistakes, and Recovering with Style. (indirectroutes.net)
- Edmund de Waal on Cy Twombly (telegraph.co.uk)
- Desert Island Discs by Sean Magee: review (telegraph.co.uk)
- Diversity and tolerance – a celebration of humanity (mymindbursts.com)
Reflections on memory creation and expressions of digital and analogue memory
Fig. 1. Shadows below the Fredikson-Stallard installation ‘Pandora’ with additional Neon EFX
Fredrikson Stallard piece for the Digital Memory Gallery sponsored by Swarovski called ‘Pandora’ is a collaboration between Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard, two British Avant-Garde designers.
This is a picture of the shadow beneath the chandelier put through a Neon EFX.
Fig.2. Shadow of Pandora – Before EFX
Is reconstruction of their work from a shadow by third part software now my memory, image and copyright?
Photography is permitted in the gallery, so sharing and transformation is both expected and encouraged.
Fig.3. Pandora – in situ.
Like flames in a fire just look. Actually, a fire place touches more senses with the smell of the fire, or damp people around it – let alone a spark that might scorch the carpet or the back of your wrist. (Now there’s an idea – though not one that health & safety would allow through).
In relation to memory, where I entered a gallery and did not take a picture what control does anyone have of the memory the experience created or the image I have?
If supra-human digital devices are used to store what we see and hear for later management and manipulation somewhere what kinds of permissions, copyright and privacy laws might we breach? How many people do you see and hear, and therefore place and potentially identify during the day – especially if this includes lengthy walks along the South Bank, across Tower Bridge to Tower Hill and the length of Regent’s Street?
Historically we shared memories through stories – creating a visual impression in the narrative and perhaps exaggerating interactions for effect. I contend that the most vivid ‘virtual world’ we can create is not a digital one, but what we create for ourselves in our mind’s eye.
In learning terms there is a lot to be said for keeping it simple – a story well told, without illustration.
The ‘bard’ holding the attention of the audience alone on the stage or at the end of a classroom. A speaker who is alert to the audience and well enough informed and confident to shift the emphasis and nuance of their story to suit the audience on the night. How can such flexibility be built into distance and e-learning? Hard without some live element and synchronous tutorials.
Radio is vivid. Try some BBC Radio drama.
Fig. 4. Southover Bonfire Society – at the bonfire sight, November 5th 2011
For a super-sensory experience marching on Bonfire Night in the East Sussex town of Lewes meets all the above criteria and more:
- Sight
- Sound
- Experience
- Touch, taste and smell
- and the emotionally charged atmosphere in relation to family, community, pageantry and history.
Over 1,000 posts on e-learning and creativity
This is what I write about so this is what readers will find: e-learning, learning, creativity, training, L&D and learning development. The Open University in the UK appears for a couple of reasons – I am on my fifth postgraduate module on the Masters in Open and Distance Education and have also done the MBA module ‘Creativity, Innovation & Change’.
I also attended London’s School of Communication Arts.
My background is in the creation of video and interactive training as a writer, director and producer. My interests involve creativity not only in this context but as a writer – so I often write about the creative process drawing on some terrific sources that I have come across.
Creative Technique: Working with Dreams and/or Keeping a Dream Diary
This from B822 Creativity, Innovation and Change which ended in April.
Several reasons why as a technique it is out of the reach if most of us and impractical as a management tool.
a) What good is it ‘dreaming up’ something at random.
b) That has nothing to do with the course.
I found myself giving a presentation to an eager group in a crowded boardroom. I don’t know why.
‘and Jonathan is going to give you the criteria’.
And up I step, in a two piece suit with the manner of Montgomery addressing the troops – effusive, informed, consided and persuasive.
It went something like this:
“We human are blessed with an innate ability to float in water, though not necessarily fully clothed, or carrying a backpack and rifle.”
Laughter.
“We should encourage swimming for a number of reasons: for the love of it, as a life skill, as a competitive sport and for fitness’.
At which point I am full conscious, which from a dream state meant ‘I lost it’.
Why this dream?
I am reading a good deal on the First World War and I am swimming four or more times a week again after a long, slow easing back into the sport over the lt five months. I even got papers through yesterday which I only opened late in the evening before going to bed to say that I had passed the ASA Level 3 module on Sports Psychology (which makes 10// modules down on that ‘Front’.
Working with dreams
This from B822 Creativity, Innovation and Change which ended in April.
Several reasons why as a technique it is out of the reach if most of us and impractical as a management tool.
a) What good is it ‘dreaming up’ something at random.
b) That has nothing to do with the course.
I found myself giving a presentation to an eager group in a crowded boardroom. I don’t know why.
‘and Jonathan is going to give you the criteria’.
And up I step, in a two piece suit with the manner of Montgomery addressing the troops – effusive, informed, considered and persuasive.
It went something like this:
“We human are blessed with an innate ability to float in water, though not necessarily fully clothed, or carrying a backpack and rifle.”
Laughter.
“We should encourage swimming for a number of reasons: for the love of it, as a life skill, as a competitive sport and for fitness’.
At which point I am full conscious, which from a dream state meant ‘I lost it’.
Why this dream?
I am reading a good deal on the First World War and I am swimming four or more times a week again after a long, slow easing back into the sport over the lt five months. I even got papers through yesterday which I only opened late in the evening before going to bed to say that I had passed the ASA Level 3 module on Sports Psychology (which makes 10/11 modules down on that ‘Front’.
What impact does primary education have on how someone turns out?
‘They came really close to beating any creativity out of me’. says Steve Jobs of his primary education. Ahe had parents who listened, struggled, even moved house to get him a better start. what’s your story?
Let’s take a walk with Steve Jobs
Search the Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs biography for an idea of how often Steve Jobs took friends and colleagues, rivals too on long walks and you wonder if this is an important creative problem solving tool that should be taught at Business School. There are over 150 references which must refer to some 80 walks. It is well documented that getting away frim the desk and out of the office is an excellent way to free up the mind to relax and daydream, indeed ‘Start the Week’ today on Radio 4 with Andrew Marr gave us the ‘how to be creative’ story from a variety of angles.
There’s more than just the walk though, there’s the cluster in Silicon Valley that means there is a key industry player up the road with whom you can take a walk.
Creativity on BBC Radio 4
Start the week with Andrew Marr.
JONAH LEHRER ‘Imagine’ How creativity works.
- A universal property of human nature (though it doesn’t mean we are all equally good at it). Jonah Lehrer.
What is creativity?
A different kind of mental activity to sweating it out at the office, or the ‘ah ha’ moment in the shower. the epiphany.
Bob Dylan and his moment of insight (May 1965) when he least expected it (or wanted it), after a year long tour he took a break.
- The cortex sharing a secret with us. Jonah Lehrer.
What are the mental states and moods. Relaxed. Daydreaming is important, why a walk without the iPhone, a flight without the laptop, even in the bath is a place to tap into unconscious awareness.
Testament to unconscious ideas.
Value of collaboration, being surrounded by the right people, the big city, the ‘cluster’, such as Shakespeare moving to London (what was it about the 1580s and 1590s in London?).
Can we recreate another age of genius?
Grit. Single-mindedness. Persistance. Putting in the 10,000 hours.
Joanna Kavenna is a novelist.
Preparing for the ‘great out pouring’ then the potentially gruelling, striving.Defamiliarising yourself.
Robin Rimbaud – aka Scanner
Neurons firing, the heart beating. The social interactions that feed into this world.
Neuroscience confirms what we had always thought was necessary or going on, such as Colleridge going for walks (or Steve Jobs).
- Easily distracted.
A wall chart showing 22 projects. A morning, an afternoon and an evening session then quit.
Dr Rachel O’Reilly is a research fellow in the Chemistry Department at the University of Warwick.
A chemist. How to take a material and improve it. Problem solving for a company, the ‘audience’ we report back to, or funders, another ‘audience’.
And here’s a creative team to die for:
Steve Jobs and Pixar
Breaking out of the mindset
Preposterous process of ‘growing a baby’ and a new encounter breaks you out of your mindset and habit.
Childhood play and do i.e. ‘playfulness’ compared to the business-like ‘job’ at a desk (even at a keyboard).
If you are at all successful, you are then expected to reproduce what you did before and the habitual way you work becomes a habit. Andrew Marr. (And what publishers/the public expect and want).
A writer and a musician want to change their voice.
Being in the right place at the right time.
The ‘Semilweis knee-jerk reaction’.
[While doing some of this at Connect Wisdom]
Peak ages of creativity
- Poetry early 30, like Physicists.
- Novelists mid 40s
- Caused by ‘enculturation’.
- So always try new things, constantly risk reinvention.
- Painters peak late.
- Historian late.
Imposed archetypes
Inestimable confluences of influences. The writer who is obsessed with reading other people’s works as well as writing.
What is creativity? Hear from Andrew Marr and his guests on BBC Radio 4
Start the week with Andrew Marr.
JONAH LEHRER ‘Imagine’ How creativity works.
- A universal property of human nature (though it doesn’t mean we are all equally good at it). Jonah Lehrer.
What is creativity?
A different kind of mental activity to sweating it out at the office, or the ‘ah ha’ moment in the shower. the epiphany.
Bob Dylan and his moment of insight (May 1965) when he least expected it (or wanted it), after a year long tour he took a break.
- The cortex sharing a secret with us. Jonah Lehrer.
What are the mental states and moods. Relaxed. Daydreaming is important, why a walk without the iPhone, a flight without the laptop, even in the bath is a place to tap into unconscious awareness.
Testament to unconscious ideas.
Value of collaboration, being surrounded by the right people, the big city, the ‘cluster’, such as Shakespeare moving to London (what was it about the 1580s and 1590s in London?).
Can we recreate another age of genius?
Grit. Single-mindedness. Persistance. Putting in the 10,000 hours.
Joanna Kavenna is a novelist.
Preparing for the ‘great out pouring’ then the potentially gruelling, striving.Defamiliarising yourself.
Robin Rimbaud – aka Scanner
Neurons firing, the heart beating. The social interactions that feed into this world.
Neuroscience confirms what we had always thought was necessary or going on, such as Coleridge going for walks (or Steve Jobs).
- Easily distracted.
A wall chart showing 22 projects. A morning, an afternoon and an evening session then quit.
Dr Rachel O’Reilly is a research fellow in the Chemistry Department at the University of Warwick.
A chemist. How to take a material and improve it. Problem solving for a company, the ‘audience’ we report back to, or funders, another ‘audience’.
And here’s a creative team to die for:
Steve Jobs and Pixar
Breaking out of the mindset
Preposterous process of ‘growing a baby’ and a new encounter breaks you out of your mindset and habit.
Childhood play and do i.e. ‘playfulness’ compared to the business-like ‘job’ at a desk (even at a keyboard).
If you are at all successful, you are then expected to reproduce what you did before and the habitual way you work becomes a habit. Andrew Marr. (And what publishers/the public expect and want).
A writer and a musician want to change their voice.
Being in the right place at the right time.
The ‘Semilweis knee-jerk reaction’.
[While doing some of this at Connect Wisdom]
Peak ages of creativity
- Poetry early 30, like Physicists.
- Novelists mid 40s
- Caused by ‘enculturation’.
- So always try new things, constantly risk reinvention.
- Painters peak late.
- Historian late.
Imposed archetypes
Inestimable confluences of influences. The writer who is obsessed with reading other people’s works as well as writing.
Exploring the science of creativity
Related articles
- Jonah Lehrer: The Origins of Creative Insight & Why You Need Grit (swiss-miss.com)
- On Bob Dylan’s lyrics vs. Jonah Lehrer (shortformblog.com)
Mind Bursts 