The Alchemy of Creativity by artist-in-residence Richard Heys
‘Creative power is ineffable. It remains ultimately mysterious, and every mystery affects us deeply. We are ourselves charged with this power down to our subtlest parts. We may not be able to express its essence, but we can move towards its source, in so far as at all possible. In any event, it is up to us to manifest this power in its functions, just as it becomes manifest within ourselves.’
– Paul Klee
– ‘The End of Feeling’
A major theme in my teaching over the past few months has been to strengthen the connection to and sense of our interiority, and delve more and more consciously into our deeper creative resources. The participants have by now created many paintings, exploring differing colour moods and atmospheres, some complete and some still in process. We have each entered into and begun the journey of the painter. This is personal and different for each of us and yet we share many things in the process, not least the sense of confusion and frustration when things do not go in the “right” direction with a piece, and we are left wondering how we got to this impasse.
If we consider each time we begin to paint that we are accessing the Artist Mind, and that we are crossing over to the Poetic Continent then we will find our own individual way to journey into our interiority. Each time we express our creativity we deepen our connection to it. This is a healing process – at once hopeful and deeply human.
‘Persephone’s Call’
Seamus Heaney writes that; “We go to poetry, we go to literature in general, to be forwarded within ourselves.” I believe that this is also true of the art of painting. I am looking forward to the arrival of the New Year and January in which I intend to complete a body of work for an upcoming show at AKA Gallery, Cambridge. I then look forward to welcoming people back into my studio again in February when classes will recommence.
‘These Days’
“The act of creation and of giving form to chaos means power to choose. Choice is the positive limitation that ultimately gives birth to form. We can only learn to choose our own path when we are free to make choices. In this light, the art studio reveals itself as a privileged place for choices, and a shelter where hope is born.”
Ana Angelica Albano (Sementiaha Project 2009). Faculty of Education, University Estadul de Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil
