One of the issues I intend to pursue is the influence of outside distractions on the creative process. I am fascinated by the variety of ways that artists work and the psychology involved in influence and distraction. Everyone has their own opinion on the best working methods, and I am curious as to correlations between successes and failures within creating artwork under certain circumstances. The worthiness of this research can be stated by an opportunity to explore various working methods, and perhaps offer new perspectives to artists and educators that may not have previously been attempted. We all have our “creative blocks” and perhaps this research could yield workable solutions to minimize the severity of those blockages.
The first image above, is my original train of thought from the first week of class. The second image (with the additional red markings), is the evolution of where my thoughts have ventured after an additional week of readings and project consideration.
Hi Melissa,
ReplyDeleteThanks for showing how your research map has evolved.
I agree that artists have very different ways of working! I wonder how you define "distraction" because I wonder if one person's distraction is another person's inspiration. If you had to put your ideas into a research question, what would it be?
I think my question would be:
ReplyDelete"How do distractions affect your creative process?"
Specifically, I'm thinking about what we each "require" in order to perform at our best. For example, I am virtually worthless without music. There are certain types of music that I need to perform certain tasks and if not properly organized, the music becomes a distraction, not just "background noise".
Over the summer studio sessions, my drawing professor actually stated "the worst possible thing you can do while creating art is listen to music. It requires the same creative aspects of your brain, thus not allowing your creative side to fulfill it's potential. What people SHOULD do, is listen to talk radio in order to distract the LEFT brain and allow all of the RIGHT brain to work towards the creative task at hand."
Being a pretty even balance between left and right-brained (I'm a math/english/fine art split), listening to talk radio completely distracts my ENTIRE brain. I end up focusing on the words and their meaning, and become completely unable to draw a line with a ruler, let alone paint with oils.
I guess I'm not necessarily looking at the idea of "distraction" as inspirations, per say, but rather how we handle certain types of things that could be categorized as distractions, while we work.
(Currently, the battery in one of the smoke detectors in my house is dying, so there is a steady beeping to remind us to replace it. I can completely ignore that noise, but it makes my husband crazy.)
So if that is the way I'm looking at this, should I re-phrase my question?
Melissa I think it's a great idea. Who will you interview? Art students, part-time artists (like me) or full time artists who make a living from their art?
ReplyDeleteI usually don't have anything distract me when I'm making art (even a phone call is just a break). But, my biggest problem is to get inspired or getting an idea, a spark. For that, I have tips, methods and ways to get my artistic groove on. Is that what you mean by distraction? Something in our daily lives that prevent us from creating?
Marie...
ReplyDeleteI've been asking myself who I'll interview - I'm wondering how the results will vary if I choose to interview "professional" artists vs. students. I had not really considered the idea of a "part-time" vs. "full-time" artist....that would certainly yield a different spectrum of results as well.
I think I've subconsciously been planning on interviewing students, as most of the professional artists I know are actually friends of mine, and I feel like that could offer too much personal bias in the results?
I'm not so much interested in distractions that hinder inspiration, so much as I'm curious as to what people "require" while involved in the creative process. Like I mentioned, I HAVE to have music - but it can only be certain genres. (Hard rock usually makes me angry and the simplest marks on the canvas become constant challenges; dance music usually ends up in less painting and more dancing; soft pop channels more in-depth thought = deeper meaning within my paintings...)
I guess I'm calling them "distractions" because of the effects they have on us while we create. Perhaps I should rephrase? "What motivates your creative process?".....the only thing I'm worried about with that, is it becoming more about the "inspiration", and as I said, that's not at all what I'm looking into...
suggestions?
I understand. Well, I think it's going to be an interesting study / research. If you have a chance of interviewing college art students, that would be interesting, since they have to produce on command and they are actually into art more than high school students for example.
ReplyDeleteSaw this on one of the reading assigned this week (online one).
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/concepts/creativity.html