Posts Tagged: creativity
A swirl of changes and challenges
A Swirl of Changes and Challenges
What a swirl of changes and challenges we have been experiencing in the past days and weeks!
It comes as no surprise that art fairs across the nation have been canceled this year for the safety of all the artists and the art patrons. I’m disappointed to not be able to see so many of you in person this season!
In light of these changes, I hope you will join in me in alternative ways to enjoy color and creativity which I have included below:
- Check out my Available works for purchase on my website. After you select Purchase on the piece you would like, complete the contact form and I will be in touch to arrange payment and shipping or delivery.
- Attend the online version of my “Creative Core workshop by signing up to join my “Create from the core” Facebook Group here. Once accepted, you can access the free “Creative Core” workshop on the Group page. You can also find the “Create from the Core” Facebook group by going to Melynda Van Zee Studio Facebook Page. This workshop was created when a previously in-person workshop was cancelled earlier this spring. In the workshop, I include art journal prompts and easy art journal ideas for you to explore your own creativity.
Thank you so much for your continued support.
“New Realities” 48 x 48 Melynda Van Zee © 2020
How to Discover what to Create Next?
How creative people discover what to create next seems like a perplexing mystery for most people. I’m often asked, “Melynda, how do you figure out what to create?” or “How did you come up with the ideas for these paintings?”
Trust me-I understand how difficult the answers to these questions can be. During the winter months I have more flexible time, so I spend many hours in the studio navigating my own rough waters to creativity as I find my path to new work. This process sometimes feels like crossing a desert or braving the wilderness as the blank canvases are laid out before me ready for whatever is next.
Through trial and error, I start to find the answers to what is next when I dig deeper internally and spend time in the quiet. I try to give myself permission to wander into my own stories, and engage the things I’m naturally drawn to and love.
Allowing-Melynda Van Zee Art Journal 2020
Digging Deeper by Art Journaling
But how do artists actually do those things like “digging deeper” or “engaging the things I’m naturally drawn to?” One really important way I explore my work on a deeper level is art journaling. An “art journal” may not be really the right word for what the books I work in look like. They are more a cross of a sketchbook or notebook filled with images, color, text and sketches. For me my art journals really function as an idea generation book.
So I’ve been spending a significant amount of time lately with my art journal/idea generation books. I’ve been cutting images out of magazines, arranging and gluing images to journal pages, and then adding layers of text or paint. Somehow in this very intuitive process of selecting images I’m drawn to, arranging them with poems or written text, and adding color, I start to see themes emerge. I start to notice which colors continually attract my eye. I start to see images that repeatedly show up. This practice of art journaling helps me look inside at the things that deeply interest me. It is one key that leads me down the path to discovering my new work.
Focus on Flow-Melynda Van Zee Art Journal 2020
Stephen Quiller says in his book Watermedia Painting “I can walk into a museum, look at a painting, and know immediately if Winslow Homer, Edward Degas, Georgia O’Keeffe, Robert Henri, or Johannas Vermeer created it. Why is that? I believe it is because they spent a lifetime of sketching, taking notes, and studying; in short, living their art. As they matured, their marks became more distinct. There came a point when they mastered the craft of painting and let this mastery serve their power of expression. Yet they kept probing deeper inside taking risks, and finding uniquely what they had to say. They all got to the point where their knowledge of craft, their study of other masterworks and periods, served so they could most fully express their vision. In short, they got to the point where they could let their subconscious and spirit take over.”
Sustaining Creativity
Sustaining Creativity-Intentionally Taking Time to Slow Down and Restore
Retreat Time
Melynda Van Zee©2019
Sustaining creativity takes intentionality and occasionally taking extended time to slow down and restore. So this fall, I committed to going on some weekend retreats and I spent more extended time in my studio engaging in my creative practices. After months of art shows, exhibitions, travel, moving and hanging art around the country, I could feel internally this longing to slow down and re-engage my creativity in a deeper way. It’s not always easy for me to stop and rest, but I knew I needed a season of longer and deeper quiet. I needed time for restoration and rejuvenation, that was a bit more than my normal weekly creative and self-care practices.
Art Journal Time
Melynda Van Zee©2019
Art Journaling, New Supplies, Inspiration Boards
Over the last few days and weeks, I spent time working in my art journals, while watching the maple tree in my neighbor’s yard turn a glorious shade of scarlet. I experimented with some new art supplies. I cleaned through old files. I unearthed old ideas, thoughts and projects. I sought inspiration in books. I painted, cut, glued, sketched, and jotted down insights. I replenished the art supplies I had consumed during the year.
Creativity Inspiration Board
Melynda Van Zee©2019
I made an inspiration board from cut-up magazines and art reproductions I love.
Quiet, Walks and Organizing
The fall colors on my morning walk
Melynda Van Zee©2019
Morning Walk
Melynda Van Zee©2019
I went on walks in the prairie taking photos as I went. I cleaned up and organized my studio space, desk and office files. I sorted and put away all the things where they belonged. I spent time in quiet and solitude.
Deeply Embedded Practices 60×30 Melynda Van Zee©2019
After engaging in these practices of paying attention to my daily world, my personal physical spaces, and looking deep within at my own interior life, it rejuvenated my creativity. Doing these practices with intentionality helped me to be ready to begin my personal painting process again.
“It seems to me that a large part of painting is longing,
a fluid movement ahead,
a pouring forward towards the unknown,
not a prying into things beyond
but a steady pressing towards the barriers,
an effort to be on hand when the barriers lift.
A picture is just an on-the-way thing,
not something caught and static,
something frozen in its tracks,
but a joyous going towards what?
We don’t know.
Music is full of longing and movement.
Painting should be the same.”
Hundreds of Thousands: The Journals of An Artist by Emily Carr
And, so I’m now creating “on-the-way” work as I transition into a new season of possibilities, opportunities and challenges. We often under recognize the power of these practices to heal our weary bodies and souls, while simultaneously sustaining our creativity. But, this type of work allows the creativity to rise to the top after the internal sifting work is done.
Quiet Moments as Foundation 36×48 Melynda Van Zee©2019
Sustaining Creativity from a place of Quiet and Rest
I’ve been capturing this moment in time full of open-hearted space in color and texture on canvas. I’m creating from a place of quiet and rest rather than creating from the space of deadlines or exhaustion. I’m pouring forward towards the unknown right now. It’s never easy to step into the unknown…it being “unknown” and all…but, my deep underground work of creative and restorative practices makes my creativity sustainable and pulls me into the unknown future. It doesn’t follow a straight line. It is not linear work. But, it is fruitful. And, since we are all heading into the unknown together, I’d rather go in posture of “joyous going” while meandering my way here and there, listening deep and following the inner movement of my rivers of inspiration.
Five Steps to Nurture Innovation
The Paintpushers group at “Light & Dark” art reception Heritage Gallery Des Moines, IA
What kinds of problems are you struggling to solve on a daily basis? What areas of your life and work need innovative thoughts? A recent problem I was invited to solve by one of my artistic communities, the central Iowa based Paintpushers group, was to create two paintings with the theme of “Light & Dark” for our yearly group art show. I was given a couple of canvas sizes to choose from and a deadline for completion and exhibition. And, then time, to contemplate and create.
Light & Dark Paintpushers Art Exhibit
Step One- Ask Big Picture Questions
Often times when we are faced with big problems to solve and looking for truly innovative ideas, the project can seem so overwhelming it is hard to even know where to start. I started my creative process by asking myself big picture questions like “How do I visually represent the vast concepts of ‘Light & Dark’? How do I put color, line, and form around such abstract concepts? What comes to mind when I think about light and dark? What do they represent to me?” These big picture questions are a good place to start while grasping vision for innovative ideas, but only the first step.
Looking Towards the End of the Night 24×24 2018©Melynda Van Zee
Step Two-Research and Drawing Connections
Over the early months of the project, I let my mind drift around the concept of light and dark. I thought about the concepts of light and dark aesthetically, philosophically, emotionally and spiritually. I read current news reports, ancient scriptures, art history books and novels. I wrote notes in my sketchbook along the way. I spent time drawing what felt like random abstract shapes in my art journal. I had conversations with artists in my Paintpushers group. I worked on other paintings for different shows. I interacted with my friends and family. I went to yoga and took walks. Basically, I call this the “marinating phase”. Like a good steak, ideas need time to marinate. Ideas need time for the thinker to research and to draw connections from a variety of sources.
Darkness is as Light 24×24 2018©Melynda Van Zee
Step Three- Live the Wrestle
My thoughts around the topic grew deeper, actually more confused. “Is one painting all light and one all dark? Do they each have elements of both? Who am I to try to paint Light & Dark? What wins Light or Dark???” And, now I was sinking down into the messy middle…cross pollinating ideas, the sorting and eliminating concepts. I referenced my own experiences and I looked for the universal connections. For example, I know that I have personally experienced light notably masked by grayness/darkness-a light marred by dark shadows. I know, too, that this is the experience of humanity-a universal experience for all of us. I know that each of us gets to choose where we will focus in the midst of these complicated realities-will it be on the light? Will it always be on the dark? Will it be with eyes open wide to the reality of both?
“Light & Dark”-work by Melynda Van Zee and Charlotte Redman
I started wrestling through the emotional and spiritual roadblocks to solving my problem. I asked myself “How do I let despair, anger, evil win and block out the light? Do I pretend that everything is sunshine and roses putting on a false front of uber happiness that is unsustainable? Can I acknowledge the beautiful, tumultuous experience of having both light and dark simultaneously appearing in my daily life often times at a mock rate of speed as I do something as simple as scrolling through my social media feeds? And, how on earth, might I somehow be able to translate these larger questions through paint?”
“Light & Dark”-Paintings by Kristin Aulwes and Jacque Hudson
Step Four-Commit to the Work
As I was working through my own personal, “why and how” questions, my fellow Paintpushers members were asking themselves similar questions. I find it kind of fascinating to watch this process of corporate creativity and innovation. What happens when you take a group of visual artists with numerous personalities and life experiences and ask them to commit to exploring the same topic-in this case creating two pieces of work with the theme of Light & Dark? What happens as each individual artist lives through the wrestle of how they might interpret these concepts with their own media, personal symbols, textures, and color choices? What happens when we all finally commit to doing the work and start creating?
“Light & Dark”-Paintings by Rob Romero and Jeff Rider
For at some point in the innovation process, the creator actually needs to commit to the work. Decisions start to be made. Tools come out- in our case…we begin to draw, sketch, paint, pull brushes out, uncap paint pens, order canvases, commit to size of panels, pay fees, sharpen pencils, fret, and plan. We apply the paint, pencil, and charcoal. We start with 1st layers, obsess, stare, avoid, research more. We add more paint, take photos, turn work upside down, paint over, look at it from across the room, and complain about the process to anyone around us. And, then we finish. We declare a painting complete. We photograph and varnish and sign and title and add wire to the back.
“Light & Dark”- Paintings by Mason Howerzyl and Chris Vance
Step Five- Share the Work
But, then this creation, this innovative solution to a problem, this personal interpretation of a theme, needs to be shared, needs to leave the safety of the studio, needs to make its way into the world and the artist needs to let it go. What happens when a group of creators come together and shares this new body of work corporately imagined, but executed in the privacy and quiet of individual studios? My answer to this question is growth-growth is what has happened. Growth and transformation and innovation-new ideas and images have been welcomed into the world.
“Light & Dark”-a wall of paintings by guests of Paintpushers
The process of innovation is fraught with ups and downs, sideways maneuvers, emotional upheaval and uncertain outcomes. But, for each of us that undertakes the creative process, we transform a bit of who we are in the process. Taking invisible concepts like “light” and “dark” and making them visible-that is what artists do, but the process for how we actually do it is sometimes quite a mystery to the artist themselves while in the middle of the process and almost always to those around the artist.
However, this process does not need to remain a mystery.
Remember these Five Steps to Nurture Innovation…
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Ask big picture questions
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Research and draw connections
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Live the wrestle
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Commit to the work
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Share the work
“Light & Dark”- work by Andrea Van Wyk and Sarah Schroeder
I read so much about how our culture is deeply in need of innovation, but I fear we have much to learn about where true innovation comes from. The worlds of education, business, government, health, science all have deep needs which will take innovative thinkers to solve.
“Light & Dark”- work by Kristine Clemons and Emily Kobliska
How does change, transformation, and innovation happen in our communities and businesses?
Discussion during “Light & Dark” Paintpushers Group Show 2018
What if artists become the teachers of innovation and problem solving?
Artistic community of Paintpushers
What if artists would teach other people this process of corporately imagining new things- how to ask big picture questions, how to research and draw connections, how to live the wrestle and commit to the work?
“Light & Dark” Paintpushers Group Show 2018
What if artistic communities become the model for sharing explorations and incubating innovative ideas together?
Polk County Heritage Gallery Des Moines, IA
And while the Paintpushers “Light & Dark” show at the Heritage Gallery for 2018 is now history, the process we took to achieve the innovating work in this show is something we can repeat over and over again in the many arenas of our lives. And, it is a process you can adapt to your own problems-your own situations in need of solutions and innovative answers.