00III of potential hindrances to our creative development continued…

Up to this point, I’ve been skimming some potential motivation behind the attitude that we need to know the rules before we break them. We’ve considered the value of rules as helpful contributors in the form of technical skills/craft and the limitations of rules as attempts to locate our creative impulses by bowing to an authority or predetermined steps to standards of good composition. So what’s the deal with breaking the rules?

Let’s review the possibility that acquiring an outward technique is a ticket to explore the dimensions of our inner self and to allow our creativity to come out. We’ve already traced the perspective that any  learned/mimicked technical skill itself is not the creativity, it is the mechanism. No matter how expansive we feel when we first take on the honing of new skills, at a certain point we’ll likely find ourselves in a kind of landing in the staircase. 

source unknown.

This stall out happened to me through the skill of drawing. I got caught up in imposed notions of good composition and became driven toward the achievement of realism skills as I was soaking up all the attention and admiration I received. Once I had the skills, though, I got so damn bored and was at a complete loss for ideas to draw. I kept trying to emulate other artists and I soon realized that my hands felt like old dogs; I had no personal style or alive mark making and couldn’t pinpoint when I’d lost it. This discovery was a bit devastating to me because I couldn’t figure out how to bypass the solidified muscle memory of my skills; I couldn’t seem to break the rules even when I tried and I soon lost all interest in drawing. My skills did not take me to the creative flow. So how did I get stuck in a sort of deadened ritual?

For a while now, I’ve been thinking a lot about how this experience seems tied to what Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, introduced as the Ego or Ego-self. This Ego-self is now commonly perceived to be an ancient part of us; as the deep survival consciousness that has kept us alive. When out of balance this self clings to safety and security and is driven with a desire for certainty and comfort. It considers itself separate from nature and wants to keep everything the same (even if it’s not good for us) or leaves us feeling empty and/or anxious. It likes to blame others and our circumstances for our feelings of lack or inadequacy and it has us thinking small and short-term. I’m not saying that the Ego is all bad—-here I’m considering it when it is out of whack (it’s a pretty complex concept, obviously). Perhaps if this part of us is balanced, it looks more like ease, confidence (knowing and choosing what we really want on a deep individual and collective level), and trust (in ourselves and the universal unfolding).

When we consider a limiting approach to rules in creative pursuits on the grounds of an imbalanced Ego-self, we can see the part of us that desires success, appreciation, acknowledgement and external achievement based on how and what our culture has conditioned us to expect. It worries about failing to measure up to set standards. Unfortunately, being entirely driven by these desires obstructs one’s creative expression. When we approach so-called rules in art from the misaligned Ego, we get hemmed in by them. So where do we look to see past this external validation?

In Karlfried Graf Dürckheim’s book, Hara, he delves into the Japanese philosophy concerning the nature of the vital centre of a human being. While he was learning archery from master Awa Kenzô, he was initially shocked by the master’s methods and then came to realize the purpose in acquiring the skill:

“…it was a bundle of straw about three feet across, placed at eye level on a wooden stand, my feelings may be imagined when I was told that a pupil had to practice two or three years before this target, what is more, at a distance of about three yards (nine feet). To aim for three years at a wide straw bundle from a distance of three yards! Wouldn’t that be boring? The more one realizes the purpose of the practice the more exciting it becomes; because the problem of hitting the target never arises.”

The student does not get stuck in the concern of success or failure of hitting the target and is, therefore, free to learn beyond the Ego; to explore and develop oneself beyond fear and comfort. As master Awa Kenzô put it,

“…what ultimately matters, in learning archery or any other art, is not what comes out of it but what goes into it. Into, that is into the person. The self-practice in the service of an outward accomplishment serves, beyond it, the development of the inner (self).”

I don’t know about you but I don’t recall the development of my inner self ever being mentioned in my formal education. I may have been encouraged to be creative, express myself or use my imagination but I was always wondering what someone wanted from me. Nearly everything I learned in a school was through a modern science methodology. Meaning, there is a clear distinction between the observer and the phenomenon being observed. My personal relation to what I was learning was left out as I was expected to obtain knowledge through a machine-style input-output approach. Perhaps this is another possible source of why students are stunned like deer in headlights when you begin a lesson with, “okay, just be creative.” It’s like, what the hell do you want me to do?!

You may have heard of process being emphasized in creative development in favour of the finished product. This is a longstanding idea that has recently gained more hype, although my experience as a guide in art education reveals that we are still generally clinging to the finished product. Nonetheless, this emphasis on the process without a fixed goal in mind, is vital to an individual’s creative development as it takes us beyond a fixation on outward material constancy. It is a step toward the meaningful exploration of the inner self and creative potential.

Christoph Niemann. From the website itsnicethat.com

In the first episode of the documentary series, Abstract: The Art of Design, illustrator Christoph Niemann speaks to the use of craft as armour to do “unembarrassing stuff on command.” He also acknowledges something vital beyond skills:

“The one thing that’s dangerous about focussing on craft and working very hard is that it can keep you from asking the really relevant questions. I’m trying to get good at something, but is that thing that I’m trying to get good at, the real thing?”

In order for me to bypass my desires for comfy and secure feelings that have me clinging to the known drawing skills and resisting change (as I mentioned back in Chapter 1), I had to find a way to forget the ‘good’ criteria. Worrying about making something good causes resistance to change and creativity is the essence of change. You may recall creative characteristics discussed in Chapter 2. Our Creative-self inspires us to try new things and take risks. It propels us to be vulnerable, intimate, and authentic. We actually become super excited, engaged, and energized by change and the unknown. So even if honing skills helps expand us initially, once we know them we must either break them or forget them to continue to expand and align with our creative energy; to remember and become aware of our unique nature that is infinitely evolving.

“The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes.”

-PAUL FEYERABEND