The Adjacent Possible® Blog
Explore The Adjacent Possible, a foundational pillar for creativity on The Artist’s Journey. Insights into the intersection of art, psychology and science.Get weekly Art & Creativity Tips on the blog from Nancy Hillis
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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.
The Apogee Of Summer
This intermediate time that we are in brings forth a formless and mysterious yearning, a feeling that something powerful and profound is right at hand if one could only seize it.
Stealing Victory From Defeat
I think our lives and those of others are full of scabbed-over defeats like this, seemingly forgotten but still exerting a powerful force, a force of impossibility, a repeated litany of limits.
Our particular example is in the realm of long walks, but we believe that it describes a common phenomenon, one of self-limiting behavior, of setbacks allowed to become permanent, a subtle and insidious ossification.
I think that this is the kind of process that might be at work when creatives experience artistic block.
A Symphony Of Life & Creativity
There is a parallel between the creation of truly novel unprecedented life with artistic creativity, particularly radical changes in expressive direction. New ideas are brought into an existing context, one that is established and well defended, both in the artist’s mind and in the creative community.
Art Class: Stanford Sierra Camp
Every year I’m honored to teach an art class with my friend and colleague, Dr. Jane Lombard, at Stanford Medical Alumni Sierra Camp at Fallen Leaf Lake in South Lake Tahoe, California. It’s wonderful to work with brilliant Stanford physicians, medical students, doctoral students and their families. They’re an earnest and kind and competent group, as befits those that go into the work of caring for others medically.
A Walking Retrospective & The Adjacent Possible
What if we could teach ourselves to explore the adjacent possible in creative environments in the same way that we explore it automatically when confronted with physical or existential challenges? To mute the creepy soundtrack of fear and just watch the video, as it were?
Adventure & The Distillation Of Creativity
Adventure & The Distillation Of Creativity Stripping life to its essentials. Nancy and I just returned from a backpacking trip, which is not something we’ve done a lot together. By spending three nights out on the trail, we doubled our collective lifetime total. The Lost Coast We hiked a stretch of California Coast called ‘The Lost Coast,” called that because it was lost to road engineers but otherwise just as found as all the other segments of...
Transformation, Enlightenment & The Games We Play
Cultivating the idea of the adjacent possible is a way of freeing oneself from an undesirable context, of being the author of a new paradigm and transcending the prison of other people’s rules.
FREE WORKSHOP: The #1 Secret to Creating Authentic Abstract Paintings You Love!
You question your talent. Painting becomes arduous and painful. You feel lost, wanting to express yourself but not knowing how. Learn the #1 secret to paint with joy and create art you love.
