A View of the Creative
Impulse
Claire Dinsmore
http://www.StudioCleo.com
"But one thing will live, the monogram
of their most essential being, a work, an act ... as Schopenhauer called
it: it is the belief in the solidarity and continuity of the greatness
of all ages and a protest against the passing away of all ages and the
transitoriness of things."
—friedrich nietzsche
On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for
Life, 1874
Sometimes it seems particularly difficult
to retain a consistent focus on a (Cartesian) subject for whom our
works might be intended, our audience, as it were. Often while reading
I’ve found myself exclaiming “Who cares?!” at an author, and I cannot help
but wonder if any of the words and images which I may consider valid, beautiful,
poignant, or important, will elicit naught but like response. Things,
inevitably, get so particular. Even though I may be drawn to certain obsessions
in artists myself, that does not imply that I can thus justify my own.
Is any thought, any experience which one has assimilated and responded
to in any form, other than a subjective one? Ideally of course, yes, but
in actuality I think not. ((( Vanity attends any would-be or
actual creator as one seemingly implacable element of the muse’s attire.
With this factor in mind, I will confess that I sometimes feel that I'm
'fit' to be a 'critic' as I've had quite a bit of exposure culturally;
I've also the audacity (!) to consider my vision a rather perceptive one
at times. Nonetheless, I can count myself among numerous creators who’ve
had the argument aimed at them which assumes that their work cannot be
valid unless a consciousness of their audience is kept constantly in mind.
One of the recent gospels, as it were, of the art and literary world is
the 'belief' that this (anonymous) audience should be one composed of everyman.
“Do you think my Mother would care about or understand your work?”
Should Joyce not have written Ulysses because his Mother wouldn’t be able
to comprehend or appreciate it? ((( There is also the
ever elusive temptress of FAME whom many of us rally before, but I believe
art produced for this Icon’s sake is, foremost, a matter of the ego (and/or
money). You could argue that what but the ego inclines anyone to
create, and I would counter, simply, love. (I hesitate: I can hear growling
about me the accusation that this phrase is simply a matter of 'sentimentality,'
yet I believe that anyone who is a genuine artist will hear and know the
truth of this statement). On a intimate level it can be love of the (creative)
process itself, love of ones chosen medium, love of the access which one’s
exploration of/within their chosen medium allows them. Those of us who
do not compose while retaining the image of this infamous anonymity (often
a euphemism for the marketplace) do, nonetheless, create for an audience,
and often the presiding judge in that audience is our own self. If
any experience in/of the world is truly naught but a subjective one, should
we not be the primary judge of whether we have truly communicated the fullness
of that experience as (far as) we know it? If one discusses, so to
speak, a certain subject because it’s what people want to hear, unless
somewhere, somehow, it is honestly their own, unless it is a subject which
has been known and/or experienced by them personally, how else can my effort
possibly hope or strive to be a genuine, and therefor, eloquent one?
I believe that the cauldron of the self is the initial testing ground of
the inherent value of any given work of art (be it visual, musical, textual,
etc.); if the work does not 'speak' to the creator, at least during the
process of creation, how can it possibly hope to 'speak' to anyone in the
future? For many artist’s I also believe there is a deep historical
sense which draws them to create, i.e., they’ve been deeply touched by
various creative works throughout their own lives, and thus long to be
part of the (creative) human continuum. ((( 'Quality' and 'beauty'
are terms which have stood as the cornerstones of aesthetic criticism for
many a year, but recently they have been eradicated from the annals of
such criticism as these words have been deemed 'elitist,' words which ring
with no authenticity on the lips of any but that of a “connoisseur.” I
recently heard an artist suggest that we replace these words with one which,
he felt, had signified their 'true' meaning all along: integrity.
Claire Dinsmore
http://www.StudioCleo.com
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