The Adjacent Possible Blog
Explore The Adjacent Possible, a foundational pillar for creativity on The Artist’s Journey. Insights into intersections of art, psychology and science.Sign up to get weekly Art & Creativity Blogs from Nancy Hillis
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The Hero’s Journey & Art
The Hero's Journey & Art Our lives are a hero's journey of moving from the known to the unknown and returning back again, transformed. As artists, we continually step into the unknown and evolve our work. We search and find our way, lose and find ourselves in our paintings and explore and experiment on our journey of self expression. I'm reminded of the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) who, in his literary masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, embarked on a perilous journey to find...
Creativity and Einstein’s Riddle
The difference between art and science is that for scientists the constraints of the riddle, the clues, are provided by Nature. Artists are able to create their own constraints, each artwork is a small world unto itself.
Creativity & The Power Of Subtraction
After Beauvais, the world stopped building tall Gothic cathedrals. The idea literally collapsed under its own weight. But the life of a creative isn’t so different—Once a successful painting or piece of music is created, the temptation is to evolve by addition—to repeat what worked before, making minor variations on the original idea by adding distinguishing components, and hoping one’s creations sell before people figure out there’s nothing new.
Abstract Painting Demo: Integrating New Brushstrokes
One of the considerations when going back into a painting is integrating new brushstrokes into the work and working from an exploratory, experimental attitude.
Writ in Water: Invisibility, Ephemerality & Creativity
Nothing happens in a vacuum, because even the vacuum of space is not “nothing,” Quantum field theory tells us that it is the sum of all unrealized possibilities. From electron-positron pairs to all the works Shakespeare might have written, admittedly with very low probability.
The Diagonal Possible: Creativity, Serendipity & Synesthesia
Just as in the adjacent possible, one brushstroke led to the next unknown move that was not only invisible before, but didn’t exist before. Likewise, one painting led to the next and the next- all unknown territory but explored stepwise, adjacent upon adjacent.
Creativity: Why The Path Matters
Discovery is only part of creativity. Being able to incorporate the discoveries, making decisions and carrying them forward is the other major part.
Creativity & The Contours Of Life
Pay attention to microgripes and microjoys, particularly when they happen incessantly. Addressing them can outweigh many seemingly big decisions that are taken singly.
Creativity, Turbulence & Holism
It is this juxtaposition of familiar and unfamiliar that draws us onward. Artists, like scientists, are involved in sense-making, but in their case in worlds of their own creation.
Creativity & Turbulence
The laws of physics do not negotiate nor make exceptions. Even so, the Universe is more diverse than we can know or imagine. How such rigidity can enable such complexity remains one of the grand mysteries of existence.
It is turbulent times in history that disturb the status quo, that upset the equilibrium, that create opportunity where none existed before. Turbulence allows new ideas, leaders, and technologies to emerge.
Creativity, Pareidolia & Finding Patterns
A recent word and concept that appeared in our local news is pareidolia, which connects to our experience with word games in that it is a word we’ve never heard before but might have stumbled onto doing exercises in letter combinatorics. This word describes in medical terminology the human tendency to find patterns in experiences or sensations where there are none.
Exploring the unknown, the adjacent possible, is a fundamentally iterative procedure, like the Dutch building dikes to incrementally capture more and more of the sea-bed. Each exploration creates a new bit of “land” to stand on for the next exploration and incorporation.
The Search For Creative Perfection
Like many things, this process of assemblage can be viewed as a search problem. We are searching for a configuration of elements-in relationships, in elements of a work of art, or in the construction of an object. We may be attempting to satisfy external criteria or our own.
Exploring the unknown, the adjacent possible, is a fundamentally iterative procedure, like the Dutch building dikes to incrementally capture more and more of the sea-bed. Each exploration creates a new bit of “land” to stand on for the next exploration and incorporation.
FREE WORKSHOP: The #1 Secret to Creating Authentic Abstract Paintings You Love!
You question your talent, and painting becomes arduous and painful. You feel lost, wanting to express yourself but not knowing how. But when you learn the #1 secret to creating authentic abstract paintings, it all changes. Finally, you're able to paint with joy and create art you love.
