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(...)However, if truth be told, it is lartgely my own superstition that keeps the knotty problem of intuition at arm's length. Something happens when I am creating that is beyond my power to describe. If I were to look to art for metaphor, I'd say that sometimes when I write, or draw, or perform, I fall down the rabbit hole. I enter a dream and my job is not to guide it, but to follow it, to ride it until it takes me to its logical conclusion. This state has a physical component, a rush of exhilaration that is almost visible, a surge of movement and colour that passes into and out of my body. I have tricks that can help me catch this euphoric exalation of clarity, but there is no surefire way in. Lots of time, doing nothing helps create room for it. And quiet. But that isn't a formula. And it isn't something we artists discuss much, even among ourselves. It feels too fraguile, too important and too magical to unravel.(...)

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Instead of fish and mooseheads on the wall they hang paintings?

What kind of medium does Shawna try and capture her revelations in?

I consider myself something of an artist. I brought a friend I hadn't seen in a while, also an artist, a pup from a prolific aloe vera plant yesterday along with a pile of locally picked pears. We decided to walk around for nuite blanche. We didn't look at much art...personally I found the spectacle of the unusually numerous roaming gangs of people the most interesting visual. We walked and talked, lit and twirled sparklers ran into and old mutual friend. By the end of the evening we had completed a walk which was a work of art in itself. It was the kind of beauty I live for. I was happy to let it trail away from me free. I don't wonder why people want to try and capture beauty and imprison it for all to see. Or why people want to build art crutches that help a potentially crippled audience walk into a beautiful experience.
But what about cultivating general creativity in our society and respect and awe for unframed beauty?

Personally, I am always suspicious of artists who try to mysticize the creative process, make it something bigger and more mysterious. There's more sweat than exhileration in being an artist and it does the rest us no favours when some daftie gets all altered states on us.

[ 06 October 2008: Message edited by: Timebandit ]