Spirituality

I would define spirituality as the act of divining (read: appropriating) meaning. Whether or not you believe there are celestial or cosmic forces at play is irrelevant, unknowable, and lack of belief therein doesn’t preclude one from spirituality. I return to Dissanayake’s idea of “making special” or, alternatively, meaning production again and again: value is only ever subjective, whether collectively determined for the prosperity of maintaining structure – a system – or individually assessed.

For the purposes of this dialogue I am focusing on the latter. Grey articulates this as the act of seeing (looking) versus deeply seeing: “There is a vast difference between looking and seeing – a difference which is fundamental to the artist’s experience” (Grey, p72). I would argue, perhaps only semantically, it is less a passive act of “recognizing meaning,” as he later goes on to define it, and more an act of projecting value – however subconsciously. In this way the act of creating value is an act spirituality.

Spirituality v. Religion

I believe spirituality and religion to be separate entities, yes. If religion is defined as a set of beliefs and practices, it is likely those beliefs and practices (value constructions) inform spirituality (the appropriation of meaning), but that does not make the two equivalent. Much the way we discussed in the first week’s readings that our values are in part influenced by our  family, culture, experiences, etc., that does not make them congruent – there is a separation, an opportunity for the individual to assess those exposures and choose in favor or in spite of them. Similarly our individual values (religion) certainly influence how or what meaning we may divine, but just as certainly do not define it.

Creativity

I would define creativity as an act or perception of innovation and appropriation – a combining of disparate elements – whether they be physical or merely associative of the mind – into a complex and symbolic whole. It includes spirituality, defined as the act of appropriating value, and the stringing together of seemingly unrelated yet analogous parts. In short it is the construction of meaning, beauty, or otherwise transcendent values that offer reprieve from or insight into the harsh realities of the human condition.

Source of Creativity

I believe the source of creativity extends from the desire to construct meaning in an otherwise bleak and meaningless existence – which some interpret as the “divine” – as well as the conscious manifestation of the subconscious mind. It is in many ways an effort to explain or define existence, the human condition – life. In the first week of reading we discussed survival value among other concepts. Largely there is little survival value associated with utter and absolute meaninglessness – the ego doesn’t thrive on lack of purpose. It requires validation. It requires a reason to be. It requires an unpacking of the “mysteries of the universe.”

Grey, A. (2001). Art as Spiritual Practice. The Mission of Art (1st ed., pp. 205-233). Boston & London: Shambhala.

I – not surprisingly – had a difficult time choking down much of the excerpt from Grey’s Art as Spiritual Practice.  It was overly self-referential which inherently compromised its credibility.  In the interest of indiscriminate transparency his musings reminded me overwhelmingly of listening to the vaguely coherent rants of friends contemplating the meaning of the universe after/while tripping on various psychedelics – albeit with perhaps a more academic vernacular and organized tone.

When Grey volunteered his “Aha” moment as being inspired by a drug-induced experience it became clear why.  The entire tone of the piece felt a lot like one big self-congratulatory pat on the back. His talking points seemed primarily aimed towards establishing the validity and importance of his own artwork while simultaneously dismissing the value of opposing and critical views with little to no explanation: “The works of Dadaists and performance gestures force the art world to broaden the context of what art can be. This does not automatically confer greater depth of meaning to a work” (Grey, p88).

Dadaism was a nihilistic movement of the early twentieth century characterized by the illumination of the ridiculous and absurdity of life and mainstream art forms. That sort of framework obviously isn’t congruent with Grey’s tripped out notions about chakras, interconnectivity and the divine, and so he dismisses it as “aesthetic novelty” (Grey, p89).

Criticisms of his work aside, Grey did manage to bring a few interesting ideas to the table: the act of meaning production (defined as “deeply seeing”), his articulation of the creative process (which as it turns out is an “adaptation of the findings of several scientists’ attempts to outline the mysterious phases of creativity” [Grey, p75]), and his discussion of the conceptual mind and meaning as a sort of symbolic placeholder for the external.

 

 

Grey, A. (2001). Art as Spiritual Practice. The Mission of Art (1st ed., pp. 205-233). Boston & London: Shambhala.