Beyond The Obvious

As some of you know I've been reading Michele Cassou's book, Point Zero, Creativity without Limits and my last couple of posts I've written a little about what I'm reading.  Well today is no exception, here's another excellent insight from Point Zero.

Concerning the Dragon of Meaning, Cassou writes:

"The content of your creation and its meaning offers what you think you want most, something that you can identify with...True creativity does not rehash stories or look for resolutions.  It wants you to move into the unknown and explore. Creativity invites you to practice emptying your stories and letting go the known meaning.  Your mind can only come up with what it knows...By identifying with content, you become trapped."


What she is encouraging us to do as artist is to get beyond the obvious meaning of what we paint and allow our intuition to take us past what our conscious mind comes up with and explore what we have yet to discover or understand ourselves.  She then gives a great example of a woman who after painting herself on canvas then painted a large scar across her breast.  It was very powerful for her as she had lost a breast to cancer.  She put down her brush feeling this was all that the painting was about. Cassou encouraged her to go beyond the obvious to what lay beyond.  She began to paint a shooting star coming out of the scar tissue, the painting took off from there showing the artist the extraordinary gifts that had flown out from that terrible time.  Sometimes we stop short, stuck in our thinking minds of obvious meaning and fail to see beyond and truly discover the power in our art.

"Being seduced by content and meaning makes you a slave to your thoughts." Point Zero


As I've said, very interesting reading, giving me lots to think about.

'Explore' 16x20 canvas.
These are a few macro shots taken from a recent canvas done in acrylics & some ink.  It reminds me of a map, an exploration of colour, texture and the challenge of techniques. I'm still working on a lot of fine detailing but it wouldn't show well with my camera so I've posted as is.

Hope you have an artful week!  Bren