What’s In Your Head?
3 December 2008
14 Comments
For the first time in years I am creatively tapped. I have ideas, that I think are brilliant then I begin to make them and they just don’t work. I’ll outline a few of them and show you why they didn’t work, and then maybe you guys, my peeps, can give me some creative insight. Maybe we could do a collaborative piece off of this post even? I’m game.
1. Project One: Wrap roses in clear plastic tape, and then fasten them to a stick, and line them standing in the ground on my father’s park, as a tribute to him, and symbolic of the diseases that kill us all. The plastic being our environment and the rose being something alive and healthy being suffocated.
I did this to six roses and they really sort of sucked. I had dreamed about how powerful this project was going to be for at least a month.
2. Mr. Pathetic Awesome: Study my symptoms or lack there of a specific disease, and create an alter-ego character that acted out those symptoms via video performances, and drawings of those performances. Seizures, etc. in public. Was imagining the character to have an uniform he wore, and an alter-alter-ego character as a life insurance salesman. I even walked into a State Farm shop in Beacon, NY and asked how to get into selling life insurance. I had a rasta hat on and was dressed like a bum and wasn’t taken very seriously.
This one was too close to home and I couldn’t go through with it even though Morrison Pierce helped me video a fake seizure of myself. Seeing it I could not go through with the project.
3. Truth Seeker: Video performances of Globatron the alter ego character reading the Tao Te Ching. Wanting to capture truth, and read them as a legacy for my children. My wife said, “well your daughters could just read that book so why would this be of value to them?” Was thinking to open this project up where the viewer could submit a wise verse of philosophy to be read by Globatron.
Tried one last night. Read the first verse of the Tao Te Ching and it was cornier than all get out. I had to add audio of Tibetan monks over the top of my voice and layer it so you couldn’t hear what I was saying and then it was nearly acceptable but still corny. Just trippy corny.
These are the three failed art projects I’ve worked on in the last two months. All three projects contain mortality and legacy as a theme. I believe I’m scared that I might not have another chance to make another art project. Lately, I have been working mostly in my head. What’s in your head? Thinking through a project, realizing how great it will be, then finally killing it.
So two questions:
- Who has experienced a creative block and how did you push through it?
- Does anyone see a possible way to take the three projects above and make them work, either on their own or together?
You know what’s kind of neat, the structures resulting from life and death. Like coral reefs, ossuaries…tombs?
Like when death and decay end up making stronger legacies then the evanescent blips of life that pass through them.
Old news?
meditation is painful, the body resists it, but there is a calm that comes after one sits with it for a long time. find a quiet space, when everyone is asleep, and set no time frame, darken the room, perhaps a candle, sit and watch your breathing until it calms, pay attention, let the thoughts float through your mind working at clearing the mind.
then wait, wait for direction from your perfect center.
that’s my feedback. this block is something good being born, this is a good thing, meditate and welcome it in, purify it.
hope that helps, it’s cool you are opening this up for everybody to participate in.
akbar static electricity
Maybe I’ll meditate on coral reefs? Thanks guy.
I’ve never been able to meditate Ken. Maybe you could give me better instructions and I’ll give it another shot?
anyone else find any creative blocks lately? maybe others are going through the same thing with all of the crazy political and economic news lately I would think others have blanked out too.
i agree with ken wholeheartedly. in fact i was meditating last night.
so here are my thoughts on getting into it.
don’t meditate on coral reefs.
i have learned a few techniques but the one i use is where you just try to feel the air passing in and out of your nostrils.see if you can actually feel it. it might be easy to feel it for a fleeting moment here and there – but the idea is to stretch your awareness so you feel it every moment.
when thoughts come into your head and distract you, just acknowledge them, but let them go. at this point you’re just trying to sharpen the mind and calm down.
you may start to experience sensations or feelings, don’t attach to them, just let it all pass.
don’t get frustrated, it took me like…i dunno – 50 – 60 hours maybe before i could settle down. YMMV
bk you should find Marcus Aurriles meditations he was the fourth casaer of rome, the 125 verses will keep you balanced. as far as the tao te ching keep reading, if you video the work you leave that behind for your daughters, you are creating a time capsule full of memeories
make them worth opening
Meditation: I find my best meditations are in one of two places: 1. After an intense yoga work out the meditation comes so easy, I’m fully aware of every muscle and breath in my body, at that point, thoughts flow as opposed to distract. 2. In prayer, either at church or just in my daily ritual
As far as artist blocks, sometimes the answer is spontaneous, I just stop thinking about it and outta the blue I get my answer.
Sometimes meeting in person with another artist(s) and having an open discussion of an idea helps the brainstorming process because words& conversations flow, there’s some thought process but it’s usually more spontaneous than anything.
Now I like your rose idea, what if you take 6 individual long stem roses and cast each one individually in some resin, like a block of resin around each rose with a drippy effect and suspend each one in a row with fishing line so they look like they’re floating?
Your rose idea, how about casting the roses in some resin and suspending them with fishing line? I can sketch
sorry, the end of my comment got messed up, I was at the dentist and got distracted. What I meant to say is I could sketch it out and email the rose idea if your interested.
I was thinking resin also. Glad you think the idea is possibly worth saving. How to dip the flowers in the resin? Possibly pour the resin over the rose?
Thanks Yvonne. All of you are so lucky you can meditate. I feel like I missed the boat on that one. Seems so easy for some. I’ve tried for years with little results.
it’s not easy for me.
it’s never too late to start. it’s kinda like pushups or something – it takes a lot of work.
one thing that helped me was to just give up hoping for any result and resign myself to sitting there until i died.
When Gordon Matta Clark was battling cancer he made these drawings which were visualizations of his white blood cells killing his cancer cells. What was great is they just looked like surrealist abstractions (much like what his father Matta did). There is no we could know that they were about his illness by just viewing them. They seem to be very personal images, like some sort of meditation, self-therapy via drawing. Drawing for a distinct purpose. I am not sure these were even meant to be considered as art.
I don’t see any block going on here. You are dealing with a lot of information, emotion, pressure, worries about your children etc- how in the world could anyone flesh out a coherent, fully formed work under all that? I just think you need reflection time. Meditation is wonderful, my version is always that period in between sleep and waking up- great moments for ideas to rush in my head.
What materials are you collecting as a result of this? paperwork, medical bills, MRI images? Medical imagery really fascinates me. Not for just how they look but for what we do with them, First of all, we require an expert to help us interpret their meaning, they immediately create emotion (worry or relief) and a call to action, they reveal a hidden part of ourselves (maybe a part we would rather not think about)
The 3 project ideas above are interesting not in themselves but for what they reveal about the things you are dealing with- the first one ties your ordeal with your father (past), the second with yourself (inward, present)and the third with your girls (future). The themes are strong and they can be represented in many different ways. Let it come to you, meditate or whatever for awareness. But people who write about personal ordeals or illness generally do that much after when they can reflect. I know there is a time pressure/worry situation, but I for one am assuming you are going to pull through so you have all the time you need.
I was just re-reading what i wrote and i thought about the odd language I/we use like “battling” cancer or “pull through” which is great fodder for characterization or parody.
Thank you Mark. I appreciate you allowing me to feel I haven’t been slacking. There is so much to think about right now it’s a bit overwhelming. Focus is definitely lacking and you are all right, I have to learn some sort of meditation.
It would be interesting if we could all meet one day and have guided meditation for artists. I’m sure some guru out there would help in the process.
I appreciate how you broke down my themes Mark. Possibly I need to readdress them in January some time after I’ve had some time to reflect. And you are correct, I WILL have plenty of time to reflect.
I’m reading Lance Armstrong’s “It’s Not About the Bike” right now.
A soldier with cancer wrote him a letter after hearing about his diagnosis, and the soldier stated, “You don’t know it now, but we’re the lucky ones.” That pissed Lance off, but in hindsight I believe he learned the moral of that lesson. I’m sure the lessons come with some distance from the actual initial shock and awe of any medical issue.
December 11th my friends from 8:30-12:30 please pray (or do whatever activity you might do to wish well on others) for me as I receive an awake craniotomy attempting a resection of my lesion. It could potentially add decades to my prognosis if successful.
Thank you all for your friendships. I’ve felt more community through this blog than I have in many different living situations.
When I fully recover I will hold a Team Globatron get together. We should all meet up and attempt to meditate.
Oh man, I hate the term “battling cancer”. It’s not a fight. You’re either lucky and you live a little while longer or you’re not lucky and you die. To say someone survived cancer because they battled implies that another person didn’t survive because they didn’t battle hard enough.
I feel you Kurt. Many lose the battle even though they fought really hard. My doctors can’t even give me any hope that even thinking positively has any scientific advantage in this battle.
Cancer swoops in and takes who it wants to. Regardless of health, outlook on life, or advantages or disadvantage of health-care.
It’s sort of like meeting your maker. Then having a little dance, and if he or she decides to take you to the after party he does or doesn’t.
No rhyme or reason currently for who is chosen to be taken. Only a stack of statistics of what might have worked on hundreds of thousands and where you might fit or not fit on some chart for some prediction on a prognosis.
It ain’t pretty. Cancer research is one issue I’m hoping our new President will begin to put more funding towards, if he has a chance with all the balls he will be juggling in the near future.
Sorry about your Pops Kurt.
Having hope and faith that things will get better, is something that I believe is all of our responsibilities. I know faith and hope are easy to lose but facing it…you need to have it. Or at least I do.
The Roses:
I would make a cast to poor the resin into, probably in the shape of a cube (kleenex box size) and suspend the rose in the middle, i think the duplicated blocks of resin would give a look of a mass produced object, maybe you could even add one of the triangle recycle symbols on the cubes for an added feeling of a plastic mass produced object.
in response to what kurt said, it’s an interesting thought. my dad was diagnosed w/ hep C a few years ago, his liver slowly failed and after about 2 years of struggling and waiting for a new liver, he died (june 2007). after the first year, he gave up hope and he wanted to die. he kept going into these intoxicated comas and the doctors would keep cleaning out the toxins and he would come back, a little weaker, a little worse every time. he was so mad every time he woke up, it’s was a difficult thing to go through. i wonder if my dad actually wanted to live, would that of extended his life any? or if he would of given up earlier, would that of shortened his life? or were his cards already laid for him?
when it comes to beliefs, i feel that in a lot of ways we connect with what we believe. of course there’s no concrete answer to anything, but through a lot of soul searching, study and prayer i’ve come to the conclusion that i have more control over my life than what i thought. a lot of my failures, disappointments, downfalls, can all be traced back to a bad decision i made somewhere, sometimes out of ignorance or just thinking i knew more than what i really did. happiness is up to me, whether i die today or a hundred years from today. after life kept beating me up for several years, i got very cynical & negative, it affected my relationships, my family, my health, my finances, …. it took me hitting a personal rock bottom of bad decision making for me to be open to a new way of life. in turn, my life has made a 360. i still have daily struggles, but i face them with a positive & hopeful way that makes getting through them so much more rewarding.
don’t lose your faith and hope, no matter what comes at you. i know that sounds like something that would go on a greeting card but i hope you know what i mean. i have only good thoughts, good hopes, and good expectations for you byron
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