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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William Tell & The Spices of Creativity
Creativity is about exploration, and exploration is about iteration.
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.
Of Crosswords, Chimeras & Creativity
Paradoxically, the use of constraint is related to exploring the adjacent possible.
This is paradoxical because constraint sounds like closing in or reducing possibilities whereas the adjacent possible sounds like expanding possibilities. But they are both about boundaries, and creativity lives at the boundaries. This applies to both art and life itself.
The Crocuses Will Still Bloom
Things are not what they seem, especially when a new life is struggling to be born from the ruins of the old one.
Nature and the Improbability of Art
Great art is associated with complexity and un-resolvability, not solely in the artwork itself but rather in the collective system of artwork and audience. Art challenges the model of reality of the person who experiences it, to evoke thought and emotion and sense-making.
Creativity and Everyday Miracles
Sometimes accomplishing the impossible just requires a reframing of the problem. Sometimes you don’t even know what you did until you pause to think about it.
Creativity: Moving The Earth With Archimedes & Stravinsky
I believe the hardest aspect of moving the Earth in one’s life is not the act of finding a lever and pushing it, it is arranging to place your fulcrum somewhere, a kind of existential real estate play.
Creativity & Illusion
Creativity & Illusion It's the New Year and we're back! The temptation today is to write about American politics or perhaps COVID or some other disease of the body and mind, but we will resist this temptation. Instead, Bruce will turn to one of his heroes for insight into more permanent things, the inimitable Einstein. Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. Albert Einstein Bruce's Story People have wrangled over what this quote meant ever...
The Creative Journey Through Darkness Into Light
The Creative Journey Through Darkness Into Light In The Cycles of Creativity we talked about the special properties of this dark time of year, a season that seems drab and dreary and moribund, but is paradoxically anything but. This is a time of marshaling of energies. In the landscape, a leafless and brown terrain belies the activity that is occurring unseen and underground. Much of the world is invisible to human eyes and must be seen by the power of thought, the magic of...
Of Coffee, Creativity & Immortality
Art has one foot in the unchanging and the immortal. The other foot is in the physical realization of it, the blob of impasto paint, the rosin on the cello bow, the granite and the chisel.
Evolving Your Art: Q&A With Nancy Hillis
We had a lively Q&A session after the webinar last week. Artists enjoyed it and I think you might too.
Creativity & Fame: From Zero to Infinity
As we digest the excesses of Thanksgiving here in the US, we invite you to explore the transience of fame
through the lens of art, creativity and physics My Little Pony and Euclid make cameo appearances And we end up ten feet underground.
Creativity & The Journey Of Un-Forgetting
Remembering what you didn’t know you lost can be one of the hardest things you ever do in your life. Water gives us access to our primordial origins- to a state of possibility, infinite in all directions. Creativity is like the un-forgetting of swimming, a liberation into a whole new reality, an ocean of possibility.
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.
