To be creatively continuing

So I tell myself it is all about Process and not simply Production. Creativity is found in the unlikeliest places and not necessarily at the times when one is searching for it. "Being an artist" (and I admit I am only guessing) - a professional artist - is an occupation. It is not stereotypically as pictured ; the bearded emaciated figure high in his Parisian garrett waiting for inspiration to strike him. Writing has a similar romantic image but Terry Pratchett as a writer tries to produce a certain number of words per day and for the artist there needs to be a similar sense of discipline. Robert Genn's letters on "The Painters Keys" website illustrate this perfectly. (see http://www.painterskeys.com/ ). What is needed is a product that ideally will bring joy both to the creator and to the purchaser.

Within the process there are millions of traps to ensure that production is sidetracked. Reference books become more interesting than actually painting. The decision on the subject matter leads to a mindless doodling - usually into what is described, by myself, as "an abstract format" but by my intrigued daughter as bubbles or rocks or fingerprints. (That is three different styles I happen to use ; not one unrecognisable one.) Sometimes I simply tidy my art boxes out or reorganize my workstation. Is this art or creativity or I am still in "a building stage" and I will burst into profligate artistic nirvana any day now. Part of the problem lies in the act of possession.

I like to be ABLE to do something if I wanted. If I want to paint or draw or carve I can. I have the tools and the materials I have collected. They are waiting. With regard to subject matter I have collected cuttings from magazines - faces, eyes, images which shock and surprise, ideas that other artists have used which I admire, photogaphs which range from the iconic to the bizarre. I am intrigued by masks, by the concepts of individuality and identity, by the spiritual nature of everything from running to worshipping the sun. I like to possess the information to learn and to harvest that knowledge any time I choose in order to create something new. So far I realise I have created a library and an archive but as for creativity I believe that is somewhere within. I hope this blog may help me to think out loud and turning that churning morrass of ideas and instincts and intentions, that intensity of feeling into some artwork profoundly purposeful and poignant. The question is how to manufacture Creativity.