The day I started this blog the marketing manager at Toi Whakaari approached me to be the subject of an article/advert for Toi Whakaari in the NZ Herald. My natural instinct is to shy away from such a thing. That very day though I stated my aim as building connection and growing creativity. Here was an opportunity to do this very thing. When serendipity happens. Let it.
The result is below. Does the article sum up me and my work perfectly. Not at all. Does it bring my work as a creative and teacher to a larger audience? Yes and with it the potential for growth of connection and creativity.
The student I am working with in the image is recent graduate Josh Foley. Watch out for his work in the future!
I like this focus on connection and creativity. Its really exciting, I think only good things can grow from these seeds. Your blog feels like a conversation which I just felt like I wanted respond to ... so my few cents that hopefully make sense!
ReplyDeleteI have been inspired of late by my friend Tobi's approach to creating his short film (Golem - http://vimeo.com/50984940). They wanted to address not just how they would create something but why. So often creative works are showcases of great technical and aesthetic talent but they are meaningless. The challenge is to work out what you have got to say? why is it important that it is communicated? why does the story need to be told, to be shared? What do you hope to leave people with? What do you hope to contribute? … and then how is this best communicated and shared.
I think there is something wonderful in the collective > individual approach ... opening these stories up to collaboration and input from others who are passionate about telling the story also and collectively finding the vehicle for communicating it. The whole is then greater than the sum of the parts. Well hopefully :)
The same kind of things happens with any social media putting ideas out there ... like daring to post this comment ... this act also steps from the individual to the collective - thoughts are open to be restructured, reformed and added to by others. They are not definitive end points but beginnings.
Its unfortunate that sometimes where we could feel encouraged by others talent / inspired / learn from them / contribute / seek to work with them and be a part of it ... we instead feel discouraged by achievement around us / like giving up / striving to be better than them / building up our own profiles and recognition / protecting what we have. I think its good to be mindful of what these underlying drivers are. I would rather delight in others talent, be encouraged not discouraged, look for collective gains rather than individual.
I'd like to think that it is best to just get amongst it, to offer what you have now rather than waiting for moments of being totally ready and perfect, of having all the answers, 'once I know this programme...' or 'know more about x' ...
which reminds me there's this great little book (from a random peruse of WCL shelves) called 'Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up' - Patricia Ryan Madson that is about this approach .... I read it a few years ago, from memory I think I found really insightful at the time... you might like it. And then on a slightly different tack but kind of related for me is a TED talk by Stefan Sagmeister: Happiness by Design... maybe you have seen it before? ... I just really like how he has been able to draw out his design from personal musings ... in this case from various lists he has written. It feels like there's a really nice synchronicity of self and work. Which there might as well be if work is to absorb a large chunk of life :)
Sorry that's really pushing the boundaries of 'comment' ek ...
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