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| Playing with Holes |
Art has the ability to bring order out of
chaos… to both involve us more deeply in life, and yet at the same time, give
us objective distance so we can see our world with greater perspective…Art can
also deal with the great mysteries of life…reflect the quality of the
unexplainable and the paradoxical. Art can explore both the human longing to
connect with the broader Universe, and the profound limitation we have that
denies the fulfillment of this longing.
These are the words of Robert Fritz,
musician, composer, and filmmaker who applies the principles of creating in
everyday life through his concept of structural tension in the book, Your
Life As Art. He talks about creative process as accessible to all of us.
This is a revolutionary step in the old story of the artist. Like Fritz, more
and more people are finding innovative ways of expanding the experience of
consensus reality. Dr. Carl Greer, in his book Change Your Story, Change
Your Life, uses shamanic and Jungian tools to explore our life stories in
order to make more conscious choices of the stories that guide our values and
decisions.
Stories are the source of how we
understand life around us, framing information of the past while giving us
tools to create the future. Ever powerful, our stories have the potential to
liberate us or encage us. Through the structure of our inherited stories our
societies dictate fundamental concepts of how we perceive and think about life.
In these times it is obvious how the collective stories have become
unsustainable. One such prevalent story is the quest for power resulting in the
exploitation of other life forms, including nature.
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| Playing with Surf |
Artists in all discipline have
historically been at the forefront of creating new perspectives and
relationships to how we see the world. Artists aid the collective in
transcending old perceptions by illuminating our stories and assisting in their
evolution. It is questionable that the avant-garde of Post-modern art functions
to this end due to the influence of marketing and investment.
As we unwittingly perpetuate old
illusions in society, we are also unaware of the underlying stories we impose
on ourselves. The old mythology of the artist as gifted beyond the norm,
eccentric, and prone to addictions and excesses is not true, nor does it
support the creative process available to us all. With life experience,
exposure to other cultures, inquiry and reflection our stories can transform.
As Dr. Greer suggests we need to know our stories. Begin by writing them out, listen
to the stories that we invariably repeat and to notice the stories that touch
us deeply, in aversion or attraction. To create something different we need to
enliven the desires and dreams that have been set aside. It takes a tremendous
amount of courage to dream beyond the marker measured by profit, power or fame
around us.
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| Playing with Arms |
We need to know our own cosmology
in order to create the life we want to live. The arts are a way not only to
discover and recognize the myths we live by but also a way to integrate past
experience to move on to new ways of being in the world. Like nighttime dreams,
images of the psyche emerge through the mind/body with the materials and tools
of the arts. Being an artist is an intention, a way of perceiving and living
rather than a quality judged by the outside world. We are talking about
creating stories, which apply the creative process to living. This is what
occurs in Transformational Painting at Anavami Studio.
Majio
