20 Comments

I loved this, Duane! Maybe we spend too much time trying to understand creativity and our time would be better spent giving ourselves over to our creative impulses and playing our way to creation instead of trying to think our way there. Your collages spark something inside of me!

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I think you're absolutely right! I know I'm guilty of succumbing to the impulse of over over thinking, when rarely does such analysis serve the work. When I'm at my happiest, when the work is at it's best, is when I'm not thinking about it, when it's finger tips and intuition.

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Gorgeous work

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Thank you! I'm starting to explore some different structures and compositions and as much as it excites me it also makes me a little uneasy, so I definitely appreciate your feedback 🙏

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So interesting, that why question, why particular things strike us in a way that excites us, inspires us, makes us want to respond, create. I don't understand why the colors blue and gold excite me. Why I'm drawn to them in others or my own work. Why textures excite me in nature and art, why I'm drawn to them. But I do like to explore why that is. I feel there's something deep and significant going on that draws me there, about me personally, but more importantly, and fascinating, about life itself on that grand, cosmic, spiritual level. Something about the universe and those fractal similarities that seem to underlie everything. I think art and nature and our response to them is part of that fractal echoing. I don't understand it, but it speaks to me. And I respond.

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Beautifully said! Thank you so much for this reply! What you said here, especially that last bit:

"I feel there's something deep and significant going on that draws me there, about me personally..."

Everything we experience is always-already a kind of Rorschach test. Everything we see, feel, taste, and touch stirs up something. Art, when its done with attention, intention, concentration, and rich observance is a great way to closely examine ourselves through our visceral reactions, reponses, and receptivity.

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I love the texture here. I’m wanting more. More of it, more thoughts on it, more response to it. Thank you for sharing!

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So glad you like it! I have a strange creative cycle. I'll stumble on to something accidentally and then when I try to explore it with more intentionality, it vanishes. That cycle seems to be repeating itself as we speak. I've completed a couple of these haphazardly but now it seems to be out of reach, hopefully I can find my way there again.

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I plan to stick around for when it does. 😉

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Much appreciated! 🙏❤️🙏

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And everything in between, of course.

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All the 'unexpected things' 🤣

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It’s the ultimate act of freedom.

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Most definitely! One of the best there is!

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This is so beautiful!

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Awe, thank you! I'm really happy this resonates with you!

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Apr 24
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I love that idea! Say more about that.

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Apr 24
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Yes exactly this! It's not our job to judge the work, to classify it, to classify it, or even to name. It's not our job to decide what it means or even whether or not it's good. Our job is only to facilitate it. To midwife it. To serve it. Madeleine L'Engle says that "When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist". To allow the work to defend itself, to stand on its own two feet, I think is exactly what she means.

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Apr 24
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Definitely. She's a writer, and though she's speaking from the perspective of author, I think this applies to all art forms as well.

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Apr 24
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