This past extended weekend, I went to Minneapolis to visit my boyfriend and attend an info session on the MFA program at UMN's art department. The facility was amazing. They had everything. They have a FOUNDRY right in the building. They have a shop for every sculptural medium and a studio for every 2D medium. They have an experimental THEATER just for art... with SURROUND SOUND. I asked if students could access a box truck if they needed to go to a lumber store for large supplies... our host replied that she didn't know what a box truck was, but any supplies you order are delivered, and you can use the freight elevator to get the supplies to your graduate studio which occupies a WHOLE FLOOR!
The last thing I saw was the gallery, an open, modern space with work from artists of their Chinese exchange program, which is big. I left with a high degree of inspiration and whimsy. To have so many things at my fingertips! I must go there! In terms of making and meaning, the mental state of "inspiration" invites further exploration.
When inspired, the world looks different to an artist, just like the world looks different to a person in love. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist whose life's work studies the brain in love, describes the importance dopamine plays in obtaining this feeling of love. Novel experiences often drive up dopamine levels, and she tells the story of a graduate student at a conference in Beijing who tries to make a colleague fall in love with him by creating novelty by travel in a rickshaw. The result is that the colleague does experience this dopamine rush and exits the rickshaw in a state of exhilaration and infatuation... for the rickshaw driver. "There is magic to love!" She says.
http://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat.html
However, I find the manipulation of this discovery intriguing. Perhaps it's impossible to tamper with someone else's internal chemistry and achieve the results you want, but within yourself, the effect can be more pleasing. Though we typically do not choose who we fall in love with, we can capitalize on the emotions we get from novel experiences and live and do productive things while in that state of euphoria. As I've gotten older, I try to spend less time basking in a state of inspiration, which is inextricably tied to a sense of longing for something ambiguous, and therefore impossible to obtain. Instead I linger in the place that causes this feeling and do whatever artful thing I can with what I have. I've been in too many situations where I had inspiration and no tools, so as an adult, I plan ahead. I anticipate those moments and they come. Perhaps they come more often because I anticipate them and don't fear being unprepared. Even if I don't have my tools, I practice "being" art, moving and looking and engaging fully in my senses so that as with any "practice" I can recall the motor expressions I rehearsed in a state of inspiration and by repeating them when I have my tools again, recall a bit of that emotional state. In a way you could simply call this practicing positivity. When routine plays such a large part of my sense of security, finding a way to inject even a diluted degree of inspiration into my day makes me more productive, and in response, more secure. An upward spiral!
I went back to work on my window piece for my thesis and finished yesterday. The SALVS is the old English SALUS which means "Health" in Latin. For artists, exercising inspiration is not going to lead to dopamine rush after dopamine rush, but through practice it helps me stay in love with the world. And I think that is essential to the health of any artist.
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