I just returned to earth. Having been away for a few weeks to explore life, I came back with a few random thoughts about creativity that I think would be good to express right about now. To start, if we are not expressing our creativity on a daily basis, then what’s the reason to get up in the morning? It doesn’t matter whether our ideas are good or bad, because they will always be good for some and bad for others. Whatever the quality, it’s always taste according to the artist, Marcel Duchamp. You’ll find that it’s fear that stops us from expressing even our smallest creative thought. The best way around fear is to realize we don’t have to have an audience to be creative every day of our lives. Can you remember your dreams when you wake up? Are you comfortable re-telling those dreams to someone else other than a therapist? Just think, you wake up already having been in a state of creativity. As I have said in the past, having a sense of humor is another great expression of innate creativity. Basically, what I am saying is… If you’re going to be a human, do your part, and be creative. You don’t have to be a genius, just be yourself and join the party. One day it will all come to an end, and you should have a few stories to tell before you go.

 

Diversity

We all live in our own private Idaho…underground like a wild potato. We tend to concentrate on the closest things around us. You need to get out of your comfort zone and visit someone else’s space. While in Paris, I went to the Marcel Duchamp show at the Centre Pompidou. Though I have read many books on the man, I was eager to experience first hand his inspirations and works of art. He was one the leaders of the Dada period who decided that ready made objects like the urinal was art. Marcel defined this art as a meeting between an object, an inscription and a given moment. He questioned conventional thinking and tried to create art that represented the alternative in his eyes. Marcel was very interested in physical and occult sciences. He took on painting with an anti-naturalistic dimension and began to explore symbolist literature as well as painting. Duchamp also began to discuss scientific, technical and philosophical discoveries of the time while playing chess. As a result, he produced some very provocative art which includes the famous Cubism/Futurism painting “Nude Descending a Staircase.”

 

“The teasing of emotions and pre-conceived notions.”

Another day in Paris, I saw a show by fashion designer Dries Van Noten called “Inspiration” at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs. This is the first show of his work and it was great. He reveals his creative process and all the various forms of inspiration that helped him create his collections. It covered 30 years of work and included every aspect of his personal journey of inspiration from music to art to his chamber of wonder that includes photographs, videos, and his personal memorabilia and souvenirs. Included in the show were additional examples of inspirational art by Yves Klein, Victor Vasarely, Francis Bacon, Damien Hirst and films like Clockwork Orange and The Piano. I was impressed with how well the inspirations were documented and how clear the connections were to his designs. He also explained all of his inspirations as you went through the exhibition.

“The starting point of a collection can be either very literal or abstract, a painting, a certain colour, a thought, a gesture, a smell, a flower, anything really. What matters to me is the journey from that first flash of inspiration to the final destination, the individual garments, the collection.”- Dries Van Noten

Another note from the show… “Rebelling against and subverting codes of social behavior are the spark of creative ingenuity. Defying established tradition empowers a break from past stereotypes of form, colour and behavior and permit the birth of new archetypes.”

 

Niki de Saint Phalle

Wandering through the Grand Palais exhibition of Niki de Saint Phalle’s art was like witnessing someone’s stream of conscience with no beginning or end. I will say up front, that I didn’t care for the work, but I was impressed with the fearlessness by which she worked. She was the artist that used a rifle and shot holes in her art to let them bleed colors of the rainbow. The art is all about celebrating women. The creativity was obvious and it looked like she could never get it all out. Niki’s mind was a fountain of creative ideas on how to express not just the female body but how to examine a female’s point of view through color and scale. There is no reason to dramatize her work with words, because words will never do her work justice. I would say, she is a great example of someone who never let her creative side sleep. “A thing of the Mind”- Leonardo da Vinci

Conclusion

Creativity is for everyone and to be used however you see fit. I truly believe that if you don’t use your creativity everyday, you are not living a full life. For centuries, artists have used their creativity to describe death, but I’m sure it will still be a surprise. I understand that Steve Job’s last words were…”WOW”