Creative Labyrinths
Creative Labyrinths
The Beginning
This episode is the inception of the Creative Labyrinths podcast. Here I introduce the inspiration and the hopes of the podcast and a little on my own reflections on the process of creativity.
Welcome
SPEAKER_01:to Creative Labyrinths, a podcast designed to explore the intricacies and psychology of the creative practice. I'm your host Cameron, and welcome to the first episode. It's taken me about two years since the inception of the idea. which came from several conversations with a creative partner and friend of mine, Joseph, who I play in a band with, where we both kind of simultaneously had the idea of recording conversations that we were having with people around their own creative practice, their own discipline, and the philosophy that they hold around their art. because generally we were finding that after these conversations there was some type of insight or a puzzle piece to be added to our own philosophy and there was a desire and a willingness to share these wonderful conversations. And that was the goal. So that's kind of the hopes and dreams of this podcast and where I'd like it to go. And like I said, it's taken two years to get to the point of recording this first one for a multitude of reasons. And I guess the first reason is fear. Because I believe we live in an age where there is a plethora, and I think it's probably fair to say, a saturation of cool things. and informative things. And I didn't really want to just add something into this kind of stream of information. I really did want it to have some type of use. And I ummed and aahed about it from week to week about the effectiveness of how this would go. And it's probably going to be a little bit shaky for the first... while while i feel my way into how it's going to work and it might get a few episodes in and then i will probably i could shut it down if it's just not going anywhere but i think it's a good experiment to take on um and for this first episode it's just going to be me uh i guess getting it started and talking about my own reflections and really walking that line of uh self-exploration and self-indulgence. And I don't know if I'm going to get that right or not. And the prerogative is yours if you choose to turn it off. But yeah, I'm going to have this kind of experiment and see if it's fruitful. And in all honesty, this first episode, this is like the fifth time I've sat down to record it. Because it's very hard to sit on your own in front of a microphone and to not think that you are just rambling incoherently into the ether. Which, you know, I could very well do. I also need to add an apology. I live near an extremely busy road, so you will hear intermittently machinery. So... Yes, the hopes and dreams of Creative Labyrinths is to explore just that, the labyrinth of creativity that the individual has inside of themselves. And that person or the guest that we have on can really only share the insights that they have with their own creative practice to the degree at which they've become aware of them. And what we have found... And what I've found is that actually it's in the process of talking about it that sometimes we begin to uncover these intricacies and shed some light into the dark caverns that we have as we begin to explore. And for me, I just find it incredibly fascinating and I hope to commune with people in some of these revelations that we can discover. So, yeah, I guess I'm just going to kind of interview myself with the risk of not being too neurotic about it. But for myself and my own creative practice, it really is, I guess, the center of my existence. For me, creativity and the production of art is synonymous with self-discovery. And there is so much to say about that. And that's kind of the aim with this podcast is to interview people about that particular construct and try to look at the point of origin of creativity in my life. And I mean, it's kind of a given that for children, it's just always there. Children are naturally creating in every aspect of their life with games, with characters. with rules it's beautiful to watch they are in an ever abundant creative space in how they explore so that's kind of a given but when I'm trying to go back to this point of origin it really is trying to get to a point where I consciously made the decision to use my time to create something new and It's a very difficult process to sit here and try to do that. But I could probably go back, I guess, to my time in primary school. You see, my father was an artist, a visual artist and a painter. So, I kind of grew up with that in the household. And my whole family were musicians. The arts were just a general part of my day-to-day life. But watching my dad paint, he's a very technical kind of painter. based in technique and accuracy and things like that and so it kind of brought a mathematical precision to what it was that he was doing and any time I attempted to replicate that I failed and I immediately linked this type of failure to the visual arts that I couldn't kind of replicate and Didn't really ever share those kinds of insecurities. And as a result, my quest with kind of joining with that creative part of myself was a massive challenge. And I continuously tried to do like workshops as a kid and art classes. weekends, that kind of thing. And every time I was engaged in that type of thing with other people doing that activity, it was so life-giving for me and brought me a type of joy that at the time I didn't really know how to put into words and still now I don't know how to put into words either. And the results that I saw on the page didn't match my concept about what it meant to be good. You know, that I had already built a construct in my mind about what it meant to be good. And because of that, I guess I kind of just put that aside and stepped more into the mindset of an appreciator. An appreciator and an analyzer of the visual arts. But parallel to this, music was... an intrinsic part of my growing up I could pitch match and sing quite well as a kid and because of that I was engaged in so many different choirs and musicals and that kind of carried me forward in my childhood to the threshold of puberty and generally it is at that threshold of puberty that we begin to really have cognizance of the fact that we are an individual separate to the world. However illusory that may be, we still begin to have that concept. And usually married up with this threshold is a way for us to, I guess, express our identity and our uniqueness. And for me, that was... at the same time that I really discovered my passion for music it filled me with something that was indescribable the lust and the desire that I had to be surrounded by music all day long and all night long was insatiable I could not get enough I had earphones in my ears 24 hours a day sometimes, falling asleep with them in, waking up with them in all day long. And what's interesting is that in my process of engaging with music, the initial impulse was always to create. It was always to make. Anytime I heard a piece of music in my mind or saw someone play on the stage in my mind, there was always this impulse of, I want to do that. And I started writing music before I could really even play instruments. As soon as I could make a sound on anything, I was coming up with patterns, with riffs, with loops. Something that was my own. And that was always the initial impulse. And I really learnt how to play instruments as a means to write, as a means to compose. Because what I was hearing, or better said, what I was feeling... And what I was trying to express, I didn't have the technical ability to do that. And it's interesting because up until this point right now, as a 37 or 38-year-old man, I still don't hold the technical ability to express what it is that I want. And that's something that I hope to discuss a little later on. So, this impulse to create has always been there. from the onset of puberty. Well, even before as I was talking about up until now and my engagement with the arts is always based on that premise of creating. And so it is in this creation that questions begin to arise. Why? Why do I have this impulse to make something? And there are many different answers to this and none are necessarily conclusive. But the one that I find the most interesting is that the inner workings of my mind for me and having knowledge of that particular thing is paramount. And I don't necessarily have a mirror in a room somewhere to walk into. to immediately analyze or immediately observe what it is that's going on in my mind. And outside of the mechanisms of meditation, we aren't really raised, I'm speaking generally, but we aren't really raised with the, I guess, the teaching of how to know our own mind. But for me, it's the most important thing. I honestly believe that everybody should be taught the variety of ways to know ourselves. So it is for me in engaging with the creative practice that I have the opportunity to know myself and to know what it is that is going on inside of my mind. And it is not a simple matter of the thing that I create The thing that I create is not necessarily the mirror of what is going on inside of me but it is the process of creating that thing that provides me with a glimpse of what is happening inside. Most of the time, it is in the friction or the conflict that arises in the creative process that provides me with a glimpse of the friction and the conflict that happens with myself in my day-to-day existence. So it could be, okay, for an example, sitting down to write a piece of music. There is a sense inside of myself about what it is that I want it to sound like. And I start playing and playing around with notes, playing around with intervals, playing around with scales to try and get a specific feeling out there. And in exploring that, there is a critical aspect that comes in quite naturally of no that's not right yes that's more along the lines of what it is that i'm trying to create and that is there at almost hyper speed fully alert to what it is that the output what the output is happening and it is through that very fast analysis that we start to guide ourselves toward the inevitable goldmine i guess and sometimes well i could probably say most of the time it is in that exploration of trying to find that point that so many things arise it is this frustration is this conflict it is this vulnerability and Even now in talking like this, I don't even know how long I've been talking for, maybe 15, maybe 20 minutes. The intense, intense desire to hit stop has arisen five or six times, just as it would as if I was painting or if I was playing some music or writing. This intense desire to stop because it's not good enough. or the intense desire to stop because I feel embarrassed or I feel ashamed of what it is that I'm doing. And then we then begin to project on the outside. Well, I should say myself, I begin to project on the outside how the audience is going to receive this. And if I project that the audience will receive this in a way that I do not intend... then I have that intense desire to bail out of it, out of the creation that's happening. And it's incredibly, incredibly vulnerable to push on through that particular psychological dynamic. It's nerve-wracking. And I would say that that type of experience is very much akin to stage fright that people have. which I myself have experienced as well of that there's an aspect of control in there that there is a I guess there is an element of control that we don't have over our own you know expression there is an element of control that we don't have over how people will view us and judge us and It's for that reason that creative output is so incredibly vulnerable. And it's in that that I find we have a great opportunity to know ourselves. Of unfolding these inner layers more and more on the outside world. Not in a self-indulgent way, but in a way of self-exploration that can ultimately bring a peace and contentment to how we exist in the world. Because a lot of times the part of ourselves that we're trying to hide or curb from our expression that we don't necessarily want people to see are real parts of ourselves. And It's in expressing those in a safe way that we have the possibility of integration. And this is something that I have found to be tremendously freeing, especially in my practice with painting, which has brought a level of catharsis to me that I didn't think possible. There is a freedom there that goes on that I couldn't express through my own music because it started with pure chaos. Pure chaos and no expectation of output. Of just doing the practice for the purest sake of the impulse of creating with color and with paint. and having zero projections, zero ideas in my mind about what it was going to look like and engaging in automatic painting. And it is in that that I then began to see very clearly that struggle in my mind of control and letting go. Control and letting go. Control and letting go. And it's a continuous fight that happens especially in the initial output phase of creating because as I was mentioning before a lot of creative process happens from the aspect of play initially just playing around picking up the instrument picking up the pen or sitting in front of clay and just playing naturally and through this process of play some spark is lit and Yeah, we could almost... I guess we could call it like a second stage of inspiration where something sparks in us and that play turns into something more. That play turns into something meaningful from my point of view. There's a meaning in there and then that play turns into the exploration of meaning. And... trying to strive towards the discovery of that meaning so i guess the question is kind of twofold what is it that we are pursuing when we get deep into an artwork whether it's or a piece of music or a poem or a play or a dance or whatever it is that discipline is and the meaning of what is it that the artwork itself should have some meaning behind it because I know that there are artists out there that don't necessarily strive for that and that's what I hope to explore in the episodes to come with artists what is it that you are exploring in your own artwork in your own practice And as I've already said, for me, it is essentially about self-discovery. And so the meaning that I search for in my creations is, as I said before, and alluded to, I guess, an authenticity of the self. This hyper-vigilance of quality control that I was talking about when exploring with play is related around how authentic is this is this as raw as an expression as I would like is this getting close to the truth and how much compromise is coming into play am I compromising true self-expression for an appeasement of the audience Am I compromising pure self-expression at the sacrifice of some type of popularity or acknowledgement? And these are the minute dynamics that happen throughout in the composition or a performance or an artwork. And it helps for me to continuously come back to that anchor of why it is that i'm doing this in the first place which is to discover myself and if there are people out there regardless of how numerous or how few that can relate with that output that is a treasure for me that's a really beautiful moment and so that is what uh one hope that i hold um previously in secret and now not is that i hope that there is something inside of these episodes as we explore people's very personal and uh unique world of creating um i hope that there is something in there that we can commune on and um bring some of these vulnerabilities and insecurities to the surface and what we may see is that we all share in these things and by bringing them forward we may very well dispel some of the mystique surrounding artistic endeavour because what I'd like to finish with is something that I have found to be fairly... familiar in my discussions with people about creating art is that there is a sentiment expressed by others of I really wish that I had or I really wish that I could explore my creative side more and I find this to be a really true sentiment and lamentable one at that that people express that there is something inside of us that stops us from doing that and whether it be not meeting levels or concepts of perfectionism or what it means to do something right I do believe that we've kind of been delivered the wrong concept about what it means to create art from school systems and communities and families or wherever it may come from for you and by breaking down those early concepts we find that the the meaning contained in producing art is actually something very personal and unique and is more about the exploration rather than the output and I do honestly feel that if people made more room in their lives to do this, that there would be another dimension they would discover about themselves which could ultimately bring peace and contentment. And I do truly hope for this for people. So this is just an introductory episode about what we hope to do and we hope to have some fruitful chats in the future. with other creatives so if you've lasted this long through my um wrestle with my vulnerability then uh cool thank you very much i appreciate that and we hope to bring you something in the very new future so this has been creative labyrinths my name is cameron And we wish you well in your quest for self-discovery. Discovery. Discovery. Discovery.
SPEAKER_00:Discovery. Discovery. Discovery.
