Creative Spirituality Reflection

  1. How do you define “spirituality”?

I believe spirituality is beyond outer appearances and the five senses, and comes from deep within someone and actually it is found in everyone, which will make each individual different. From my perspective, spirituality is something that encourages me to explore something that I do not know. For instance, when I meet some challenges and think I have limited source with a small capacity. Spirituality will be as a divine light (or faith and believe) exists inside of me and tell me I am greater and more powerful than I have ever imaged. Also, when I am going through happy time, I think my joy come from my spirituality because it is a hope and help me to enjoy and understand from within myself.

  1. Does spirituality differ from religion?

I believe spirituality does differ from religion. At first, from the definition, Religion is an institution established by man for various reasons like shared values, shared rituals, and mutual support. But spirituality is born and develops in a person and is about living life without a net. On another side, Religion is often the same for a group of person but spirituality is different and is from within oneself. That is, religion is often seems as a container in which spirituality are preserved and passed on. If someone find and know this container and found it is helpful or same with his or her spirituality, then he or she will choose to belong to a specific religion.

  1. How do you define “creativity”?

Creativity is the behavior of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. This ability needs people to think outside of the box and it usually is original and different than someone else’s idea. But it is not just imagination and it should bring this idea into our life by producing the new thought or idea. I believe everyone has creativity because they come from in different sources. Most creativity is from our spirituality because they will influence many aspects of our life.

  1. What is the source of creativity?

I believe the main source of creativity is from spirituality as I said before. Spirituality is a personal inside believes or faith, which often can inspire some artists to have a creative thinking and generate some new thoughts differ than others when they face a same topic. Also, to be a creative man, an individual need an open mind and open perspective, then they can absorb more information to lead inspiration, therefore creativity.

Art as Spiritual Response–Deeply Seeing

According this article “Deeply Seeing” by Grey, I found it is very interesting about the main concept of deeply seeing. He discussed about the importance and value of seeing, and there is vast difference between looking and seeing. For instance, we can look at many things during a day, but it is very superficial and just can be seem as looking not seeing. Grey pointed out that “seeing occurs when our attention is arrested by a person, object, or scene” (Grey, 71). Then, he used an example that people will see the both ways before crossing the road. Yes, I strongly agree with this point of view, you cannot find anything if you just look or glance at it. Yet, when you see the both ways deeply, you may see there is a car is quickly come, and you can see the danger and avoid the dangerous event through seeing. I believe this case reflects that a change for people from looking to seeing. In the reading, seeing is also the recognition of meaning as an art by Frederick Franck, “No wonder that once the art of seeing is lost, Meaning is lost, and all life seems ever more meaningless: They know not what they do, for they do not see what they look at” (Grey, 73). This quote reveals that the art of seeing is vital for everyone and the process in which being an artist encounters any subjects are meaningful and full of love and aesthetic pleasure. 

Then, Grey provided that there are three eyes of knowing, which are used to examine the spiritual beauty: integritas (wholeness), consonantia (harmony), and claritas (radiance) (Grey, 73).As the article goes on, Grey describes the process of creativity and spirituality in an artist, especially for inspiration, which has a significant influence on the artwork. Next, he said how to experience art fully, “viewers must go through a mini ego death by placing themselves in the inspired minds of the artists, who themselves are out of their minds and only act as channels of creativity spirit” (Grey, 74). I thought this is an interesting thought about how viewers appreciate other works of art, and perhaps we all need this creative pathway about the spirit of death to an ego to appreciate anything. But I still have a doubt that how do we express spirituality by inspiration in an artwork?

By the way, I found the picture called Transfiguration which is from a dream according to Grey’s words on the page 77 is interesting. A man is floating over the earth and partially covered by the light. From this situation, I believe this picture represents spirituality in a body through inspiration by an artist, and human beings should continue finding, knowing and understanding the inside of yourself through deeply seeing, and then to see and appreciate the world what we do not know, that is what I see from this painting.