After I read Chapter 3 Deeply Seeing of The Mission of Art for this week’s material, I thought this chapter impressed me. The author summarizes some normal process or phenomenon into academic language and states how a piece of idea could be developed into a fantastic artwork.
The author mentions the creative process with six steps as following: “1. Formulation: discovery of the artist’s subject or problem. 2. Saturation: a period of intense research on the subject or problem. 3. Incubation: letting the unconscious sift the information and develop a response. 4. Inspiration: a flash of one’s own unique solution to the problem. 5. Translation: bringing the internal solution to outer form. 6. Integration: sharing the creative answer with the world and getting feedback” (Grey, 75).
From these six steps, I could know that artwork is not only a design or object to show off, but also a combination of artists’ thought and soul. In the formulation and saturation process, the artist could find the topics they are interested in and they are willing to contribute their time and life to. By doing researches on the topic, they could have a better understanding about how difficult this topic would be or how successful this topic would be. From my point of view, the incubation and inspiration processes are the processes that artists associate their souls with the artwork. They do not just want to make an artwork to show off without deep meaning. In these two process, the artists make their artwork unique because of distinguish ideas and thoughts of different artists. Based on my understanding, the translation and integration are the processes of harvesting. The artists could share their thoughts and soul via the artwork and they could harvest respects and understandings from other people.
In fact, from my point of view, I thought everything in our daily life associates with the six-step process. We all need to figure out what we want and then have more understanding about what we want to do and have to do. The last 4 steps are processes for us to work out our ideas and share with others.
Therefore, art exists everywhere in our life.
Grey, A. (2001). Art as Spiritual Practice. The Mission of Art (1st ed., pp. 205-233). Boston & London: Shambhala.
I really enjoyed reading your post and think your ideas are clearly portrayed! I also found the six-step process of creativity to be interesting. While I read the descriptions of each step of the process I was really able to understand how each step would contribute to the betterment of a work of art. What really surprised me, however, was how long Grey remained in each step of the process. He mentions staying in the incubation stage of the painting Transfiguration for half a year. I expected each stage to last about a month at most, and was intrigued by the length of time described by the author. However, I do understand that in order for the artist to become fully immersed and knowledgeable about his subject, it takes time and patience. What were your thoughts about the length of time artists may spend in each stage of the creative process?
I enjoyed reading your post and I really liked how you describe what the last four steps of the creative process mean to you. Like you, I believe that the incubation and inspiration processes “are the processes that artists associate their souls with the artwork”. To me this is where most artists derive the deeper meaning to their work when looking for inspiration and a “solution to the problem” at hand (Grey, 75). It is also very interesting that you were able to relate the six step creative process to everyday life, and therefore establish a connection between what is considered “art” and ordinary daily tasks. This seems to be a valid argument that art can be many things or skills in life if they follow the creative process. I think that the difference between obvious works of art and others that may be considered art is that certain works do not follow the Integration step of the creative process; therefore they do not get presented or displayed effectively in order to be shared with others and receive feedback, as explained in the Integration step by Grey (75). Thanks for your response and making this interesting connection!
Nice post! I think you understood the reading interpreted it well and then applied these thoughts into yours’ and others’ lives. I like how you also drew upon the idea that steps such as these for creating art can be applied to everyday actions, and therefore art exists everywhere in our life! I think that if we took the time to apply these steps to many things we do like homework for example we would see great results that we might not have seen before applying the steps. I think it is cool how you found a connection with many things of our life and how art is a part of them. This is a very true statement and i think it can be argued that art is a part of more things then we give credit to. However there are certain activities such as playing sports or taking out the trash that I think don’t deserve thorough analyzing or the following of steps. I think other activities like writing papers, building things, working in a hospital, or drawing could use these steps to better the results of the artist. I wonder what other activities would benefit the most from the following of these 6 steps that you illustrated.