The Adjacent Possible® Blog
The science of creativity, the art of the possible.Get weekly Art & Creativity Tips on the blog from Nancy Hillis
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Empty Virtuosity & The Tyranny of Technique
If I just had better technique, I’d be a best-selling artist
Is this really the path to fame and fortune?
Maybe so, maybe not.
Artist Manifesto: A Critique Of Art Critique
Art does not have right or wrong answers that are universally agreed upon like the solutions to mathematical equations. Nor is art is merely technique, just as mathematics is not simply numbers and music is not only notes.
Cultivating Your Studio Practice: The Power of Starting
Cultivating Your Studio Practice: The Power of Starting Starting is probably the greatest challenge of all creative enterprises. Zero to one, from nothing to something. Why is it so hard sometimes? The nature of things is resistance to change, while the nature of process is resistance to stasis. ― William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways: A Journey into America Perhaps it helps to break it down into pieces. There's more to starting than starting itself. It's all the good things...
Finding Creative Inspiration & Abstraction
As an artist and psychiatrist, I get to work with thousands of artists all over the world and what I see is a recurring theme of artists feelings like their art doesn’t quite measure up to what they want it to be.
This is what I’m going to talk about in my upcoming free training: 3 Massive Mistakes Even Professional Artists Make That Cause Them To Not Like Their Art.
The Adjacent Possible Never Stands Still
The adjacent possible is not permanent, it is fluid and constantly reconfiguring.
Alone & Together in Life & Art
Alone & Together in Life & Art Alone together in the Church of Blue Lake Tahoe is one of my favorite places on Earth. I never get tired of staring at the improbably immense expanse of blue, constantly changing color by sun angle, wind, and reflections of clouds and surrounding mountains. It is never the same twice, ranging through aquas and teals and cobalt blue and ultramarine. An old friend of mine and I swam almost three miles today, crossing our personal...
Art, Invisible Forces & The Spontaneous & The Considered
What happens in the existential drama of an individual painting is a small mirror of the forces at work in the entire culture. But it can be a powerful and illuminating mirror.
Small & Quick Creative Miracles
The lesson is to stumble with your eyes open, to listen to the birdsong amongst the din, to realize that miracles can be fast as well as slow.
Dreams & The Hero’s Journey
Restless motion runs through my veins, hot oil and hurtling metal. So it’s not surprising that transportation was the lure that caught this fish.
The Adjacent Possible Takes You Somewhere New
We decided to do a real science experiment for the camera. We start with the Adjacent Possible and end up balancing on one foot.
Creating The Adjacent Possible Book
Creating The Adjacent Possible Book Creating a book is quite the journey. There are many steps to bringing it to completion. Today we discuss our journey of creating our forthcoming book, The Adjacent Possible: Guidebook & Stories of Artistic Transformation, from inception to near publication and how principles of the adjacent possible guided our steps. Here's the book cover that won the Cover Contest! With gratitude from my studio to yours, Nancy...
Creativity: Glass, Flow & A “Hot” Brain
Perhaps the creative life is all about keeping one’s brain “hot,” in a childlike state where it can fluidly adapt to new influences.
FREE WORKSHOP: 3 Massive Mistakes Even Professional Artists Make!
Learn the three vital studio practices that are at the core of creating as an artist to overcome inhibitions, activate your creativity, fall in love with painting again and create paintings that wow you.