- Become familiar with was in which spirituality influences artists
- Discuss the differences between spirituality and religion
- Examine spirituality as a generative force and a well spring for creativity
Original post:
How do you define “spirituality”?
I think spirituality is the way that we treat things beyond the physical object. It is created by our human natural and we use it to define other people’s personal value. Everyone has different spirituality, which cannot be influenced by others’ spirituality and environment around her or him. There are so many ways people can express their spirituality, art is one of them.It is hard to get spirituality but also it is hard to change it.
Does spirituality differ from religion?
Yes, I think spirituality is different from religion. Even though, both of them are related to personal value or something like non-physical value. We still can easily tell them by many ways. Religion is what you believe in someone else and one you believe in can give you help and support you. However, spirituality is what you believe in yourself. I think spirituality is higher level than religion, because people can have a specific religion, but they may do not know their spirituality very well.
How do you define “creativity”?
Creativity is a process to recognize or generate ideas that maybe useful in solving problems or communicating with others. Creativity is transient in nature and is constantly evolving. I think creativity is a mix of ideas of one’s own experience and based on the motivation from previous activities. There are some reasons that people are motivated to be creative: Creativity is need for novel situation, solving problems and well connected with each other’s. In order to be creative, we should view things in a new way or from a different perspective. It is just like a novel product of personal values, experience and knowledge. I think everyone has the capability to become creative, because we all have different background and the unique background will become the source of the motivation of creativity. What is the source of creativity?
What is the source of creativity?
I think the source of creativity can be from intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. For the intrinsic motivation, I think personal experience plays a major role, which included what we have thought about, met with, saw and observed. We can observe novel ideas by appreciating it from the life experience given us. For the extrinsic motivation, it comes from the external world that we live in and the influence from the people or environment surround us. For instance, the religion belief around us may have a deep influence on our mind. The surrounding traditional belief may become the motivation of our creativity and make us create novel thoughts about our surroundings, which can be called the process of creativity.
Reflection:
These two pictures show that spirituality is a kind of brainstorm. In Grey’s article, I understand the relationship between spiritual practice and art. According to what Grey said “In order to experience art fully viewers must go through a mini ego death by placing themselves in the inspired mind of the artists”(74). I also understand the difference between seeing and looking, ” a difference which is fundamental to artist experience”(Grey, 72). Furthermore, during the article, I know that the sources of creative thinking come from intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. However, creative thinking is really hard for me. I tried to have some creative ideas but I failed. I always follow some other people’s idea and can not have my own creative thinking. Friends’ opinions make a huge influence on me.
Future:
In the future, I will focus on developing my own “creative thinking” by learning different religions, beliefs and cultures around the world. I need to be an individual in this world, to think about what are the things I need and how can I get the opinion from my friends but their opinions will not make a huge influence on me. I think through this way, I will get more insight into the difference between “religion” and “spirituality”, and also be much more open-mind to others’ individuality.
Grey, A. (2001). Art as Spiritual Practice. The Mission of Art (1st ed., pp. 205-233). Boston & London: Shambhala.