Week 7 Creative Spirituality Reflection

 

  1. How do you define spirituality?

    I believe spirituality can have many different meanings and forms. I believe that the main definition is the spirituality is something that you connect to more than physically and mentally. It is something more than your body and soul. It can give you a sense of comfort, a sense of knowledge, or even a sense of intuition. It can help guide you where you need to be at that movement or in life.

  2. Does spirituality differ from religion?

    I believe that there definitely is a spirit when it comes to religion it does the same thing as I described above but is more about the religion aspect of your life. Now I believe there to be other types of spirituality. There can be atheists who still feel the spirituality. It can be more than just religion. Like in this week’s reading. The author says “the goal of an artist is to reach a state of mind where art flows irresistibly through them, hence finding the art spirit. (79) It can be anything where you can just get this overpowered feeling that you just know what to do.

  3. How do you define “creativity”?

    I define creativity as your ability to produce something new or unique that you originally thought in your head. And then taking action and using your skill to follow through with those thoughts or ideas. It doesn’t have to be artistic either and you don’t have to be a professional to be considered creative. It can involve your job, organizing something, or even coming up with a certain way of cleaning. I believe it is most recognized however in art like painting, ceramics, performance, etc.

  4. What is the source of creativity?

    I think the true source of creativity is our mind and art spirituality if you will. I agree with Grey’s Creative Process on page 76 of “Art as Spirituality Practice”. There is formulation, Saturation, Incubation, Inspiration, Translation, and Integration. I think every step is taken when being creative but each person is different on how long they take on each step. Some people may not even notice that they do some of the steps. I believe a lot of creativity comes in “ah ha” moments where an idea just pops up in your head whether it be art ideas or something else. They key is to follow through with the ideas, then you are actually using your creativity to create!

Week 7: Creative Spirituality Discussion

This week’s reading on “Deeply Seeing” really intrigued me. I am going to school for art and it is a big part of my life. I have grown passionate for ceramics but also draw, paints, and use multimedia. I was interested in what the writer came up with for the creative process for an artist. I have always thought that every artist was unique in how they create their art but I now agree with the author. Formulation, saturation, incubation, inspiration, translation, and integration all come into play as an artist. It finally made sense when he wrote how every artist will spend different amount of time on each step, which brings it to the uniqueness that I was originally thinking about. (76)

He states that the goal of an artist is to reach a state of mind where art flows irresistibly through them. (79). I believe this to be so true. It gets very frustrating when you are not in the right mindset and your creative mind is not flowing well. The author nailed it with calling it “finding the art spirit” I don’t think it has to do with God or anything but it is spiritual in that you connect to something further than just you to create beauty and art.

I found out that my inspiration process is the kind where I just suddenly will get a full-blown image flash in my head, often while I am sleeping as opposed to getting snippets of ideas and finally seeing the rest once I start creating the art. I must sketch all the time to get all the details down before I forget.

I am currently taking my first yoga class this term and just heard about chakras and couple of weeks ago. I became interested learning the connection of the seven chakras to how we as artists reach spirituality through these chakras.