Tag: creativity

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Exercise and creativity

Early Morning at Moon Lake, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I have never once gotten up in the morning and said, “gee, I can’t wait to get outside and climb Beech Hill.” That goes double for winter, but I still do it every day.

I’ve been doing serious daily exercise (and, yes, I mean seven days a week) as long as I can remember. Even during chemo, I’d push my drip bag along on a pole and keep walking. In fact, I turned down a port because it would mess with my running schedule.

On the Hard, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, $522 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I’m not telling you this to be a twit; I believe exercise is an important daily habit, no different from brushing my teeth or making my bed. Although I’ve had two serious cancers, I’m still here. I’ve also avoided the typical diseases of aging like diabetes and heart disease.

The physical benefits of exercise are well-documented. Exercise improves brain health, including memory and learning, executive function, processing speed and attention span. It helps us manage weight, reduces the risk of disease, and strengthens bones and muscles.

Equally documented are exercise’s mental health benefits. Exercise reduces anxiety, depression, social withdrawal and negative mood. And exercise slows down the physical and mental decline of old age. I’m not going down without a fight.

Coal Seam, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Exercise and creativity go hand in hand

There’s a demonstrated link between exercise and creativity. “Even a single, brief bout of aerobic exercise can ignite creative thinking,” wrote Dr. Chong Chen, author of a narrative review on the topic. He looked at 21 studies exploring the link between exercise and creativity.

Both the type of exercise and its duration affect its impact on creativity. For example, strength training doesn’t seem to do much for brain plasticity. Too much exercise and we stop benefiting (and may even decline).

What is creative thinking, anyway?

Mid-century psychologist Dr. J. P. Guilford identified two types of creative thinking: divergent and convergent. Convergent thinking is arriving at the single best answer to a question. Divergent thinking is the process of exploring many possible solutions. Divergent thinking is associative and flexible, while convergent thinking relies on working memory and fluid intelligence.

You might think that divergent thinking is all we need as artists, but in fact we need both. First, we come up with our ideas; then we winnow and execute them.

Peace, 8X16, $903 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

How does this work, physiologically?

Regular aerobic activity can trigger structural changes in the brain, including increased brain volume, particularly in the hippocampus, according to Amir-Homayoun Javadi, author of Joggin’ the Noggin. But these adaptations occur over time. What happens in the short run?

Javadi suggests that acute exercise temporarily improves our blood flow, bringing fresh oxygen to the brain. Furthermore, exercise that doesn’t demand much thought (like my daily walk) actually dampens activity within the prefrontal cortex, allowing the mind to roam free, without constraints. That may be why walking shows better promise for creativity than yoga, which requires mindfulness.

The biggest bang for your buck

Activities like treadmill running and dance help with convergent thinking. Meanwhile, walking helps with divergent thinking and is the only form of exercise associated with heightened originality. However, it’s apparently useless at enhancing convergent thinking. On the other hand, if you have a hill or mountain nearby, the uphill slog can benefit your convergent thinking and the downhill amble will help your divergent thinking. Presto! Beautiful, balanced brain!

One more thing

If you know a school administrator, policy-setter, school board member, or parent, wave this post in front of him or her and suggest-strongly-that school policy allow kids lots more time untethered from their desks. Immobilizing our children, whether in school or in front of the television, is surely one of the great injustices of our current age.

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I’m learning a new art form

I’m slowly learning to act naturally in front of the camera. It’s been a difficult process.

The ancient Greeks used ποίημα (poiÄ“ma) to describe workmanship. It comes down to English as poem and poetry. Poesis, which means bringing something into being that did not exist before, is another derivative.

It’s no surprise that ancient Greeks thought of creativity in poetic terms; they were masters of verse. We do the same thing today, letting language romp across various art forms willy-nilly. Composition and dissonance, for example, mean the same thing to a musician as to a painter.

That’s because the structure of art is oddly consistent across genres. My bass player husband can pick up any string instrument and coax decent sound from it, because the principles are universal.

There are exceptions, of course. “What is the equivalent of a sketch in photography?” Ron Andrews mused in response to this post. Ron’s right about static photography not needing sketches, but storyboards are just sketches for moving pictures.

The two classes I have finished so far; number three should join them shortly.

You don’t know what you don’t know

At the beginning of this year, I set out to make a series of online classes about painting. I want to get through the seven steps of a painting by the end of this year. I’m almost done with step three, composition. It’s been a doozy. The lesson is long and complex, but so is the subject of composition.

Just the brain dump would be challenging enough. On top of that, I’m still learning the medium. I have no director, so I’m learning to speak slowly and naturally to a camera in an empty room. I’m learning to do voice-overs and tinkering with ways to demonstrate technique. I’ve learned to edit audio and video on three different platforms.

Then there are the exercises and quizzes. To write them is easy; to make them work interactively online is more difficult. Thank goodness for Laura Boucher. She’s my operations manager, daughter, and software guru.

Then there’s Monday Morning Art School, which is free, of course.

Look to the experts

I don’t watch television or movies and I’m too old for Tik-Tok. To overcome this, Laura has me studying YouTube videos. Sandi Brock is a middle-aged sheep farmer from Ontario with close to a million subscribers. She’s an improbable influencer. I learn a lot from her.

The most liberating lesson is that people really don’t care about my flat Buffalo accent or wrinkles. To some extent, the artifice of perfection is irrelevant in contemporary social media. People find their own tribe and ignore the rest.

Painters today have incredible resources compared to the last century. My father taught me to paint, but for most people, learning opportunities were limited to what the local art gallery had on offer. If, like Bob Ross, you were interested in realism in a town where abstraction was king, tough. You were out of luck.

Today you can go online and study with just about anyone, including me. You’re the captain of your own ship, for good or ill.

I have already made a few hundred ‘resources’ for this online class. I’m getting better at it as I go along.

I’m a convert

When I was young, I took voice lessons. I still love to sing, but my voice is a mess. Right now, I’m looking for a place to take voice lessons online. The beauty of this scheme is that I don’t need to show up at 6 PM on Tuesdays; I can do the lessons whenever I want.

Three years ago, at the start of COVID, I fought the idea of teaching online. Today I’m a convert. The proof is in the pudding, and my Zoom classes have proven more effective than ‘real life’ classes in creating professional artists, and almost as effective as intensive workshops.

And that’s why I’m, at age 64, learning a whole new form of ποίησις. The medium may change, but the impulses of creation are universal.

So tell me in the comments, what new skill are you working on?

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If not today, when?

Matt in his down coat, drawing at Sedona. He was not overdressed for the weather. (Photo courtesy Ed Buonvecchio)

Yesterday, I ambled around the grounds of the French Legation State Historic Site in Austin musing about my plans for Sunday. The air here is clear and warm, the bluebonnets are blooming, and the trees are leafing out-perfect conditions for a day with horses.

Then I remembered that my pal Sarah and the stable are back home in Maine. They’re about to receive another blast of arctic air, dropping temperatures back into the 20s and bringing more of the foul ‘mixed precipitation’ that so bedeviled last week’s workshop in Sedona. That’s my current disconnect.

Nita wore a sock over her casted hand to keep it warm. (Photo courtesy Ed Buonvecchio)

Last week’s weather was awful for plein air painting. However, I had a dedicated band that stuck it out. Nita had a pickleball fracture in her right arm. She’s a southpaw but she could only use watercolor, as managing pastels was impossible without two hands. In the cold, her injury started to throb. She painted, quietly excused herself to warm up her errant limb or go to physical therapy, and then returned. Every day.

Joan had never painted before. On my recommendation she bought a gouache kit and drove down from Seattle. No matter how grim the weather, she gamely stayed with me, exercise after exercise. At the time, I thought, “this is an awful introduction to painting; she’s never going to want to do this again.” Still, she learned the fundamentals. She says she’s going to keep with it.

Joan listening to me carrying on. (Photo courtesy Ed Buonvecchio)

What’s got you rattled?

I can think of a million reasons to not paint today. In fact, I can find a million reasons to not paint every day. I’ve written before about how Ken DeWaard, Eric Jacobsen, Björn Runquist and I can dither. There are legitimate reasons why your creative impulses are blunted, including bad weather, work, children, or storms of grief or anxiety.

We all suffer from competing demands that distract us from what we need to do. For me, for years, it was my house. I couldn’t paint if it was a mess, because disorder always feels like a tide about to engulf me

Most of us have creative impulses-to write, to paint, to build furniture, to design beautiful interior spaces or gardens. The vast majority of us never do anything with those impulses, claiming a lack of time or energy. That’s despite being able to binge-watch television shows, slavishly follow the Buffalo Bills, or (in my case) read bad novels.

Joy and Matt persevering despite the cold. (Photo courtesy Ed Buonvecchio)

Are you hiding from the challenge?

Not creating is a safe position from which to operate. Your talent is inviolable, protected, a seed not open to criticism. You remain assured that you’re really a genius, which could suddenly be apparent as soon as you have the time or focus to start creating.

That gives you the latitude to criticize other creators, as you are protected from criticism yourself.

Many of us-most of us, in fact-will go to our graves never having moved past the ‘potential’ position. Those who do experience a transition to deep humility as we start to work through all the ways our craft can go wrong. We’re no longer so quick to have opinions about other work, because we recognize the struggle in which it was created.

But first you must start.

Whatever creative task you are called to do, there is always a day you must start doing it, instead of merely thinking about it. This might be that day, my friend.

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