I listened to one of your podcasts with Dr. John Knight Lundwall, in its entirety. BTW you have a great speaking voice. I enjoyed how deep the conversation went, and how easy you were letting him speak. It was interesting that several observations were mirroring, in a cross disciplinary way, my understanding of visual art and art history. I wrote a book, Evolution Through Art, discussing how art from 35,000 + was the breakthrough of modern humans, and we have the original artworks to analyze versus speculation. The book ends on what innovative figurative artists are now leading the way to the next human evolution.
Absolutely. This is probably my favorite "about being an artist" or "how to" that you have shared. To me, it's the most important. I talk to myself on a regular basis and I make no apologies for it. I guide myself along every step of a painting process or a piano composition piece. Actually, you can use this in every area of your life. You just might not want to openly have full blown conversations with yourself in front of your neighbors; unless they are creatives too. :) Or if you are on stage, then it's just automatically seen as funny. Haha. I assign every moment of my day to myself as well, except for what arises spontaneously. I allow for that, of course. I just sat outside with my cat, next is piano practice and then I am standing desk working on grant writing, I will take a break to make dinner and perhaps to talk a walk with my son. I do that with every project as well. Think only about step A. Then the brain starts, but...but...but...but...And you address each one until you have a game plan. Implement! Thanks dissenting voices team! Thanks, Michael!
Amy, thanks for your very thoughtful comments. I’m a bit surprised that sharing an introspective dialogue would open up a conversation so thoroughly. Also notice it with Ralph’s comments as well. (Below.) I’m taking note of that.
Well, clearly you know what you are doing. Hearing from you that the way we have been thinking about things has validity and usefulness is very satisfying. It's always good to hang around with people who are wiser than you in certain areas. Why reinvent the wheel? When someone already knows something, it's smart to listen. You made me feel like I am not so far out in left field, by talking about this. I appreciate that. It strengthens my resolve to really trust my intuition about my process when I hear that it is anything like that of someone such as yourself, who is extremely successful in the arts.
Yes, Michael, from my experience I would say that the inner voice accompanies most goal-directed human action -- perhaps all, if you permit the pre-verbal neural (synaptic) rearrangements that precede verbalization to count as an inner voice in some respect. To take an example that will be familiar to you, when sending the tennis ball to an opponent and seeing how he is approaching it, one may pre-verbally form a judgment about the most probable return paths etc. Since sports are played in the now, such pre-verbal thoughts can't reach the level of speech unless the play is interrupted, when one might say, "Drop shot, dammit." or the like, especially if the drop shot looked like a low probability.
Where one has time for a degree of contemplation, as in many creative activities, the pre-verbal expectations one has of his media and pre-verbal expectations one has of the results his next choice may readily turn into inner speech, but not necessarily grammatically complete sentences. One may consciously verbalize a few concepts like "cliché" or "redundant", and move on to new candidate expressions, or "ah ha!" (i.e., "success"), and move on to the next step. I find that when the going gets tough, full sentences are very helpful, perhaps even full paragraphs written down in ones working journal. Especially helpful is the writing down of explicit questions, such as, "Exactly what am I trying to do here?" since it's hard to find the answer if you're unclear about the question.
I would love to hear more of your perspective on the psychology of creativity -- you are very insightful on this.
Incidentally, the exact origin and attribution of "art is the technology of the soul" will not surprise you -- The Objectivist Newsletter. November, 1963; "The Goal of My Writing" by Ayn Rand":
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Growing from a common root, which is philosophy, man's knowledge branches out in two directions. One branch studies the physical world or the phenomena pertaining to man's physical existence; the other studies man or the phenomena pertaining to his consciousness. The first leads to abstract science, which leads to applied science or engineering, which leads to technology—to the actual production of material values. The second leads to art.
Art is the technology of the soul.
Art is the product of three philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics. Metaphysics and epistemology are the abstract base of ethics. Ethics is the applied science that defines a code of values to guide man's choices and actions—the choices and actions which determine the course of his life; ethics is the engineering that provides the principles and blue-prints. Art creates the final product. It builds the model.
Wonderful comments Ralph! And fascinating pick up on automatized functions with tennis. Though both in tennis and art, you can “practice” with explicit consciousness away from the main event. I wasn’t sure that Rand was the primary source of “Art is the technology of the soul.” I mentioned above to Amy, that I was surprised that my introspective dialog would garner detailed replies, that is fascinating. So I will do as you suggest, in sharing more of my psychological process.
I am going to steal "innerverse!"
Send me a link. 😀
I listened to one of your podcasts with Dr. John Knight Lundwall, in its entirety. BTW you have a great speaking voice. I enjoyed how deep the conversation went, and how easy you were letting him speak. It was interesting that several observations were mirroring, in a cross disciplinary way, my understanding of visual art and art history. I wrote a book, Evolution Through Art, discussing how art from 35,000 + was the breakthrough of modern humans, and we have the original artworks to analyze versus speculation. The book ends on what innovative figurative artists are now leading the way to the next human evolution.
Absolutely. This is probably my favorite "about being an artist" or "how to" that you have shared. To me, it's the most important. I talk to myself on a regular basis and I make no apologies for it. I guide myself along every step of a painting process or a piano composition piece. Actually, you can use this in every area of your life. You just might not want to openly have full blown conversations with yourself in front of your neighbors; unless they are creatives too. :) Or if you are on stage, then it's just automatically seen as funny. Haha. I assign every moment of my day to myself as well, except for what arises spontaneously. I allow for that, of course. I just sat outside with my cat, next is piano practice and then I am standing desk working on grant writing, I will take a break to make dinner and perhaps to talk a walk with my son. I do that with every project as well. Think only about step A. Then the brain starts, but...but...but...but...And you address each one until you have a game plan. Implement! Thanks dissenting voices team! Thanks, Michael!
Amy, thanks for your very thoughtful comments. I’m a bit surprised that sharing an introspective dialogue would open up a conversation so thoroughly. Also notice it with Ralph’s comments as well. (Below.) I’m taking note of that.
Well, clearly you know what you are doing. Hearing from you that the way we have been thinking about things has validity and usefulness is very satisfying. It's always good to hang around with people who are wiser than you in certain areas. Why reinvent the wheel? When someone already knows something, it's smart to listen. You made me feel like I am not so far out in left field, by talking about this. I appreciate that. It strengthens my resolve to really trust my intuition about my process when I hear that it is anything like that of someone such as yourself, who is extremely successful in the arts.
Love it! Thank you! Authenticity rules!
Yes, Michael, from my experience I would say that the inner voice accompanies most goal-directed human action -- perhaps all, if you permit the pre-verbal neural (synaptic) rearrangements that precede verbalization to count as an inner voice in some respect. To take an example that will be familiar to you, when sending the tennis ball to an opponent and seeing how he is approaching it, one may pre-verbally form a judgment about the most probable return paths etc. Since sports are played in the now, such pre-verbal thoughts can't reach the level of speech unless the play is interrupted, when one might say, "Drop shot, dammit." or the like, especially if the drop shot looked like a low probability.
Where one has time for a degree of contemplation, as in many creative activities, the pre-verbal expectations one has of his media and pre-verbal expectations one has of the results his next choice may readily turn into inner speech, but not necessarily grammatically complete sentences. One may consciously verbalize a few concepts like "cliché" or "redundant", and move on to new candidate expressions, or "ah ha!" (i.e., "success"), and move on to the next step. I find that when the going gets tough, full sentences are very helpful, perhaps even full paragraphs written down in ones working journal. Especially helpful is the writing down of explicit questions, such as, "Exactly what am I trying to do here?" since it's hard to find the answer if you're unclear about the question.
I would love to hear more of your perspective on the psychology of creativity -- you are very insightful on this.
Incidentally, the exact origin and attribution of "art is the technology of the soul" will not surprise you -- The Objectivist Newsletter. November, 1963; "The Goal of My Writing" by Ayn Rand":
-------------------------------
Growing from a common root, which is philosophy, man's knowledge branches out in two directions. One branch studies the physical world or the phenomena pertaining to man's physical existence; the other studies man or the phenomena pertaining to his consciousness. The first leads to abstract science, which leads to applied science or engineering, which leads to technology—to the actual production of material values. The second leads to art.
Art is the technology of the soul.
Art is the product of three philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics. Metaphysics and epistemology are the abstract base of ethics. Ethics is the applied science that defines a code of values to guide man's choices and actions—the choices and actions which determine the course of his life; ethics is the engineering that provides the principles and blue-prints. Art creates the final product. It builds the model.
Wonderful comments Ralph! And fascinating pick up on automatized functions with tennis. Though both in tennis and art, you can “practice” with explicit consciousness away from the main event. I wasn’t sure that Rand was the primary source of “Art is the technology of the soul.” I mentioned above to Amy, that I was surprised that my introspective dialog would garner detailed replies, that is fascinating. So I will do as you suggest, in sharing more of my psychological process.