On Creativity

Outside of the glow of a small window, evening air breathes against the glass, leaving an invisible print of its presence. The streetlight comes on early, with the overcast skies, bright as a spark that fell unaware on an uncaring landscape. The sun lies low and flat under low clouds, as out on the street, a ragged bus drives towards the setting sun, like an animal being driven to its death. People are on the way home, the sound of traffic, the admonishment of a horn, the squeal of a tire. Everything is noise and motion, leaves crushed under the tires, birds taking flight from the trees.

Inside, there is only peace. For she had already worked a full day, arising when some people were going to bed, getting back to a room where she should sleep, but could not.

She sits at a narrow table, spread fingers splaying out thoughts while the last of the light wraps around the strong beat of her heart. Outside lies a world forgotten as the words fly, sullen clouds and dead ashes swirling, branches stirring like water, drowning in the fading light. She works until the words are freed, then pours a cup of tea to ready herself for a sleep that is but a distant memory.

Miles away, he works late, bent over a shop table, hands scarred and toughened by work, stitching, molding, creating something that will hold a life, even if occasionally the process does draw blood In the corner a fire, warming his hands, driving him to completion, even as his breath quickens with the effort, drawing into his lungs, the searing dark.

They both work, as they are happiest, without witness or judge. One crafts something gently and tenderly with a soft rein of thought, while the other takes that which was once living but is now not, writing its story, tearing down and rebuilding with the ransacking of innermost fears.

Both of them are artists, and both of what they create is art. What defines art, and what makes an artist?

Art is the province of every human being who holds within them talent. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing limited to drawing or sculpting and the like. It's simply a part of your inner self. I know artists who write, who craft with wood, who create things from fine leather, who take photos, who play an instrument, all leaving that permanent mark of their soul's occupation.

Creativity for these people, the expression of it, through picture, word, or craft, is a way of celebrating, of showing what it means to be alive, there in the unbeatable odds against it. Life, by any reasonable measure, is impossible, a human body that is as strong or frail as just one cell, with random acts of irrationality and loss wearing us down, pulling the color out of our blood. Yet, for some of us, we keep drawing in breath after breath, pulling in precious moments of oxygen with the remnants of our happiness, until our blood darkens with strength, slowly filling up those empty chambers in our hearts.

For the artist, creating is a way of taking that breath, of saying in the face of all that impossibility, or dangers that lurk in the dark streets and minds of man, just how worth celebrating it is to just be here. I am here, I created this, this little piece of me, whether you like it or not, it IS me, and it will be here long after I am gone.

Like breath, it builds on just small intakes of life, of thought of the movement of hands, the cut of a piece of wood, the downward stroke of a pen. It is not done with haste or without thought. Art can be built from the soul's imperfection, but it can not find breath with the spirit of impatience, for it is only slowly that you can hear the wind with your eyes or taste the sweetness with your ears.

Growing up in a small town left something with me that remained, despite the urgent need as a teen to get away from it. Patience. For nothing much happened there. Certainly, nothing happened fast. A parade could last two days, it seemed, and if you wanted something fixed, you usually did it yourself, rather than making a phone call to someone with tools and a credit card reader.

Behind our Sixties ranch home was open land and a small rural highway. There were no "Coming Soon! Starbucks" signs. There were cows, nothing on the horizon but the shifting of rumps, the clang of metal as they swung their heads, checking to see if you were bringing cow chow. That was years before the escape to the big city, when mornings dawned early and loneliness roosted in the rafters.

But as a child, all of that seemed larger than life, just as it was familiar and unchanging. Days dawned slow, and time rose and swelled like the curve of a woman's breast. My Dad went to work every weekday, was home every night at the same time. Friday was steak and Westerns, eating on TV trays, Saturday was chores and grilled burgers. During the afternoon, we explored, cheered on by the sawmill buzz of a lawn mower, the sound of the ice cream truck. Sunday was church, sports for my Dad, and more outside play for us while Mom curled up with her books or the ceramics she liked to make and fire.

On those days of play, it seemed as if time itself was suspended, hanging in the air like a curtain, waiting to be opened, lying on the ground to be picked up and put in our pockets, with that piece of string and the little bazooka army guy. We'd play hard all afternoon, there in time's motionless shadow. It was only with the call of Mom's voice for dinner that we realized we'd been outside 7 hours, drinking from the hose, dashing in from the gunpowder dust of August to grab a homemade cookie, in furtive raids.

Years later, I would wake, the city near, waiting for the phone to ring, or the next morning to roll around. My body wakes in its own time zone, regardless of the country or county I'm in. The days are filled with rushed deliberation, deadlines, and demands, as everyone expects answers within an hour —the time we've come to expect any problem to be solved, thanks to TV. It's food on the run, and conversations stammered like an old typewriter, noise and air, sweat and motion.

When I was called, I usually didn't rush to get there. The first responders had done their business; what waited for me wasn't going anywhere, nothing left but the tragic, unspoken bones that would wait for me forever. But once I'm there, time was a blur of heat and sweat and thought. The sun fell, the night grew cold, lights were brought in, and I realized I'd not been out here one hour; I'd been out there for ten.

It is all such things that go into what I wish to say or do, the creation of that which can't occur without your past, a recognition of not just that which is good but the keen edge of a blade that hovers above. Such things make it easy for days such as Saturday, when I will spend nine hours, over time, creating, not what would be defined as art, not something to hang on the wall, but simply two dozen tiny French pastries, made by hand, with layers and layers of dough and butter, formed and shape. They are not things to last, but things to be consumed, with a cup of hot coffee, Strauss on the stereo I sit beneath the art I have collected, above me a signed painting by Bev Doolittle, a piece of art that cost more than some of my cars and of which I would never sell, for it speaks to me of something within me, something only heard as the steady, soft foot of horses in snow

Indeed, we all have our own tastes. I prefer older pieces over modern or abstract ones. I like to look at it and see something I have seen or experienced. Artists of the 17th and 18th century could depict in layers of paint hundreds of years old, a drop of blood on a singe fox whisker It's that tiny drop that draws your eye, that you can't help but stare at, waiting for that moment when it will drop to the ground, to be consumed by the earth. 

But I am not immune to the power of modern pieces, where the artist's vision of heaven and hell, earth and order, passion and prayer might be revealed in pieces of forged metals, depicting in its hammered burden, the secret bridge between religious and sensual ecstasy, a cry out into the night. I am not unmoved by operas that do not calm the waters, but rather, strike up against the rocks, as if the sea were howling for the moon, the depths wishing their darkness to be heard.

Whatever type of art draws you in, we are all strengthened by the growing number of craftsmen and women, people who live to create, to express their joy in living, through their thoughts and hands. When an artist is alive in any person, regardless of their work type, they draw people in. They educate, provoke, and enlighten, opening our minds to discovery. Where those who have no such talents are trying to close the book, the artist opens it, showing there are still many more unwritten pages. The world would stagnate without them, just as the world is more colorful with them; for they make us think and feel and strive and, more importantly, question, as they gain in the work, not outside of it.

And so this evening, I will create, as the words flow from my fingertips. It may be ignored, it may simply be consumed later, without taste, but as I close my words and prepare my bed, the gilded evening light, a sieve for the moon, pours down like molten silver, and I am content. As I breathe in the oxygen, formed from the earth out of the chaos of gases, I am alive, and that's something I would not give up, even if what I create becomes only dust.

I look outside to a world stilled with time and darkness, people home to their lives where they build and create that which makes them happy--food, craftsmanship, words, a home. We are all the artists of our own lives, and our audience is simply our own happiness.

Because the true artist would create even if they had no audience. Yet they regard their work as a means of talking with mankind, not with their lips, but with their mind. Creativity is not a question of pay. It is not a question of willing acceptance on the part of the public. If they are recognized and earn something for their creativity, that's a good way to further it. But even if not, they would still have spoken.

And we are all the better for it.

--Brigid