Being artistic is not what you think it is
“How can someone get closer to wholeness?” asked Kenneth Madden. He was posing this rhetorical question to a seeker at a Zoom meeting I viewed recently on YouTube, in which he was sharing a message of non-duality. The paradox of the individual desperately in search of totality is beautifully expressed by this sentiment. And it reminded me of an equally mystifying statement I had read by mythologist William Irwin Thompson:
The mystic understands that the mind is like a flashlight in search of the nature of darkness; the more he searches, the more he chases it away, and so the mystic shifts from ‘The Creative’ to ‘The Receptive’, turns off the mind and allows the darkness to commune-icate with him.
If you look carefully, you’ll notice that even Irwin’s revelation of the human mind’s slippery nature contains a trap that is likely to snare the unwary. Perhaps a messenger of non-dualism might pose this rhetorical question: “But how can someone actively become receptive?” Thompson’s words may leave us with the impression that this ‘fuller’ experience must be actively sought, that the mystic manually flicks a switch from a mode of seeking, activity and doing to one of receiving. And this leads the linear mind to an inescapable cul-de-sac — how can the mind be used to switch off the mind?
Recognizing Thompson to be a cultural historian and writer who deeply understood the potential of myths to “glide across the surface of the unknown by taking on the qualities of the unknowable”, I believe his statement is not meant to posit “The Receptive” as opposite to “The Creative” but rather to point towards “The Receptive” as a non-dual mode of being which appears to be elicited through the non-individuated experiences of immersion, acceptance, waiting, letting go. Thompson does the best he can with the words he has at his disposal. To the enquiring mind, though, it seems silly and far too obvious that to become receptive one needs to become receptive. Surely there has to be another way? A more purposeful alternative that can be actively sought after?
What then is this “shifting to ‘The Receptive’’ that Irwin is pointing to and which resonates with the paradoxical message of non-doing suggested by the messengers of non-duality? And how does this relate to being artistic?
“The Creative” is an essential aspect of contemporary human experience. Our endeavours appear to be a never-ending sequence of making, shaping, manipulating, molding, predicting, outlining, detailing, chipping, carving, building and breaking. Creativity has become highly regarded across many divergent fields. Markets are flooded with books, blogs, videos and courses on ‘how to be more creative’ or ‘how to unleash your creativity’. We even have a new proper noun — Creatives — to embody those who primarily use art and design principles as their mode of operation in working environments, and those who are involved in selling what they have created.
From what I’ve read, “The Creative” is associated with coming up with original ideas, leveraging the potential of marketing companies, and using their imagination to reliably create productive results. From what I’ve observed, “The Creative” is fraught with pressures to please, tensions to exhibit, anxieties about showing up, and fears of drying up. As Thompson’s statement suggests, “The Creative” is bounded. It is finite. It has edges. It is useful and practical and productive. It makes things happen — up until a point. And then, in order to continue ‘making’ things, it requires something novel, unmediated, unpredictable, unknown — an unmaking of sorts. At some point, “The Creative” needs to step down, back off and like the mystic, trust their fate to a vessel that is able to sail across the surface of the unknowable.
So underlying “The Creative” (and I am aware of how words have already failed me as I attempt to approach wholeness and describe what is indescribable) is something obvious, inevitable, infinitely generative, immediately accessible, full and vital. Something that exceeds or transcends the apparent limitations of the individual creator and yet fully supports their individuated creativity.
I trust this is what the biologist and writer Lewis Thompson meant when he said:
The artistic imagination and the artist are quite separate things; the artistic imagination can recreate itself in many subtle ways, ways that are not immediately evident.
It is possible to be creative without being artistic. It is also possible to be artistic without actually making art or being an artist. Hence the title for this writing: Being artistic is not what you think it is. In the same Zoom meeting that I mentioned earlier, Madden shared the message that “Everything is both real and unreal” and ”Wholeness is not what you think it is”.
The seeker observes the messenger of non-duality as experiencing a reality that is more real, of having apparently attained a wholeness they do not yet possess; but this wholeness can never be what they think it is. Not because they hold wrong ideas about it, but because they hold any ideas about it. Thinking is conceptual. And concepts rely on languaging. In the witty words of spiritual entertainer Alan Watts:
Language is scrawny. If you identify the world as it is with the way the world is described it’s as if you were trying to eat dollar bills and expect a nutritious diet.
When it comes to wholeness, our thinking minds can only suggest, point to, infer, make up terms for, create symbols of, conjure illusions, since thinking is both the product and medium of the enquiring mind — and thinking IS divisive.
Similarly, while we may throw definitions, descriptions, critiques, reviews, assessments, evaluations, techniques, methods and strategies at what is artistic, in essence it defies all languaging. In fact, artistic isn’t even an “it”, in the same way that non-duality is not a thing that stands in opposition to duality.
[This experience of ephemerality surrounding ‘the artistic’ is most likely part of the reason why artists and artworks have been grossly undervalued as well as overvalued in commercial contexts throughout time. But that’s a discussion for another post.]
What is perceivable as artistic is a dynamic expression borne of ambiguity, paradox and liminality. Not because anyone can make these phenomena the goal of their artistic expression, or actively study them as formulaic methods for creativity, or purposefully employ them as artistic techniques, but simply because these happen to be the mysterious phenomena through which the innovation that is the essence of the artistic can be said to emerge.
Yes, individuals can acquire art techniques. Certainly, learners can study art history. Without a doubt, creatives can accumulate creativity tools and tricks. And yes, artists can manage the materials and resources they use to make art. But the artistic — the experiential wholeness that of necessity collapses the commonly perceived binaries of artist/spectator, self/other, inner/outer, impulse/action, intention/creation, spirit/matter, form/content— can not be acquired, studied, accumulated or managed. It is, like the apparent collapse of the individuated seeker into a state of ordinary non-duality, a happening. And nothing like whatever we think it is.
There is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that the artistic arises spontaneously, without effort, prior to any plans or preparation, or even training — catching an individual off-guard (and sometimes even without adequate means to translate it into meaningful symbols). There is also plenty of evidence to show that with sufficient experience or time an individual may learn to prepare an ‘arena of heightened possibility’ in which this happening is more likely to happen, and from which they are better equipped to translate the inspiration. Entering this ‘arena of heightened possibility’ has been a practise not only of artists — dancers, singers, composers, writers, poets, film-makers, sculptors, photographers, musicians, painters — but also of mystics, scientists, mathematicians, biologists, historians, etymologists, educators and philosophers throughout time.
As an Artistic Researcher — because I remain intrigued by what is felt as an infinite generative capacity that has the potential to enrich and enliven human experience, and because languaging remains one of best tools for sharing — I have come to refer to this happening as Artistic Mind. And as a content curator, I have made it my work and play to track down and archive as many ‘worded’ reflections of this happening as I can with the intention of illuminating a territory that I humbly acknowledge will continue to evade full disclosure.
What I find on this journey of discovery into the mystery of the Artistic Mind is what I intend to share here — doing the best I can with the words at my disposal.
View illuminations on Artistic Mind that have been archived and celebrated in this Dedication Gallery.
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