I’m twying to practice every day so it
trickles out… as I remind myself…
“as Perfectly imperfect…or as Imperfectly perfect; as I’m allowed and able.”

Thank y ou for making me smile. lol. Me too JD: I am glad outsider art, so called, even got a mag, Raw Vision, many
yrs ago now. And tx for giving the link to Thurber’s work; I have often marvelled at how his often just 4 or 5 curvaceous lines can make us see a being of weight and action on the page. He was just very cool
dr.e

?

Yeah but it is YOUR dream/art. That’s why I like outsider art / naive art so much. It seems like THE perfect representation of creative impulse. I prefer the honest / truthful to the trained / conditioned.

You’re not expecting it to pop out perfectly are ya?

This post brings to mind the practically blind James Thurber & his cartoons.

dr.e

“Living when you have ideas you can not execute ”
will be on my tombstone, I predict.

I take joy from executing little snippets of ideas here and there. Consolation prizes they are, but consolation is always welcome.

Yes, I think I understand your meaning: proportion, rather than one-sidedness, but not necessarily symmetry. Degrees
of what is given maatter as much as what is given.

One of the most interesting things that I hear from
adults who are speaking about their creative ‘blocks’ is that it’s not exactly the method they have to master… that will come in time and practice. More often, it’s ‘crawling out of’ an old mindset that has unwise and often untruthful things to say about a person’s basic abilities.

The only pill I know for that brain drain, is to keep going.

dr.e

Lord knows I wouldn’t dream of discouraging all creative writing in my kids when they’re too young to spell- I have quite a few cherished notes that they’ve penned with lots of unorthodox lettering and spelling. I just don’t like the schools to do daily repetition of this.

And generally too, I think discipline and creativity work well when they’re entwined; teach the ‘correct pathways’ as you’re also encouraging the exploring- but then as one matures and has the tools of spelling, sentence construction, or color/value/aerial perspective, etc, when those paths are worn, one can voluntarily travel off of them. That’s different than wandering blindly in the woods.

I know from reading your comments these many months, you’re the science expert, and I believe you when you say our brains have muscle memory. It’s just that my muscle memory looks more like the kid on the beach before the Charles Atlas course. I’m laughing and I hope you are too.

I think what you said is true, that what children/ adults see and endeavor cuts a primary “first footprints in the snow” in the brains, burns a trace through the synapses so to speak. I wonder too, how much terrain ‘to burn the trails into’ do we really have while young? Only one pathway for each learned response, and once it’s filled, it’s filled? Or does the brain constantly make new pathways to organize and retrieve whatever is consistently given to it? (I can hear my old behavioral psych professor spinning in her grave.)

I’m a parent who’s kids have been taught according to the “spell it as you’d like” method, to encourage their creativity. Though I’m only dealing with a small sample size, so my conclusions may not hold true universally- I’ll say that I believe this leads to atrocious spelling skills. Our brains have muscle memory- so if you write things incorrectly enough times, the brain goes on autopilot. I think this is a terrible way to have kids begin writing, because it becomes very difficult later on to spell correctly.

Now what you’ve described in regard to visual arts is much different- there’s a lot more room for individual visions and non-literal renderings in the visual arts, vs. the structure of writing (I loved your description of the little red headed girl’s hair, btw). Even in visual arts, though, there’s a discipline of learning value and color theory, and learning technique (which is what you are struggling with now- trying to teach yourself how to transfer your thoughts onto paper so that others will see what you see in your head). I’m all for creativity, but discipline of learning the theory and technique are what allow it to flourish rather than to stay in one’s head (and frustrate us in our inability to have the tools to express it).