Guest Blog: Sarah Beach on The Metaphysics of Creativity

Colleen Doran — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:13:39 +0000

THE METAPHYSICS OF CREATIVITY About a month ago on another website, there was a discussion about fanfiction and professional writing, and the distinctions between them. Some of the posters contended that it was a matter of the quality of the writing, in terms of craftsmanship. Me, I think that’s a mistake. Some professional writers can be sloppy craftsmen, while some fanfic writers have exceptional talent. Colleen and I (we’d both followed the discussion there) continued a conversation spun from this discussion. Our conversation led into other territory, and it seemed to me it would make an interesting guest blog topic. So, here’s some wandering on where my thoughts went. Professionalism in creative arts certainly begins with craftsmanship. The fanfic writer might not be concerned with that aspect of writing, but anyone with professional aspirations ought to be. But the true distinction is not in the craftsmanship itself – whether in writing or art or music or acting or any of the creative activities. What is the true key lies in the creator’s passion for his or her work. The effect of the creator’s passion is difficult to describe. It seems ephemeral. Yet, everyone gets a feeling of “This is right” or “This is wrong.” Something gets communicated, something extra. I’ve occasionally called this effect “frozen telepathy.” What I mean by that is that some inner passion the creator has for the story, the characters or whatever, gets caught in the finished work and the audience can see it, receive it. For actors, it is perhaps most obvious – there are some actors who can take you all the way inside their characters, so that even though the character “isn’t showing anything,” the audience can actually see what is going on inside. Other actors who lack this ability end up seeming flat, and the audience only gets the surface (which might of itself be pleasing – many such actors are physically attractive and may have great smiles). They may convey to the audience a nice picture but no emotional content. Whatever it is in this invisible communication, it is harder to pin down in writers and artists. As I said, there’s a lot of “This works” or “That doesn’t work” in our responses to creative works. Additionally, individual creators seem to have some sort of internal signature that identifies the work as something from a specific creator. It is that unique touch that lets someone say at a glance of a painting, “That’s a Van Gogh,” “That’s a Rembrandt,” “That’s a Picasso,” “That’s a Hirshfeld.” Something similar can occur in writers as well: Hemingway’s prose is different from Faulkner’s; Robert Howard’s prose is different than that of his pastichers. Years ago, I read a book titled SENTICS, by Dr. Manfred Clynes. Clynes developed a finger pressure sensor that allowed him to measure emotional response to stimuli. It turned out that there were specific pressure signatures for specific basic emotions and the responses were consistent cross-culturally and across the sexes (meaning men and women are not really that different in their responses). Clynes then extended his research to human response to music. In doing so, he discovered that listeners would create similar pressure patterns in response to different works from a specific composer, even if they were unfamiliar with the works. And, by and large, the musical work created a consistent response in listeners. This meant that an American, a Japanese, a rural African each listening to a specific work would generate pressure signatures with a pattern distinctive to that composer. Apparently, the only major differences occurred when the listener was a strong individualist with his own distinct response to music. Conductor Leopold Stokowski frequently put his own stamp on works he conducted, and this showed up in his responses in Clynes’ studies (Clynes knew many notables in the classical music world). Reading Clynes’ studies gave me a lot to think about in this matter of the “invisible communication” in creative works. The fact that Clynes found a way to measure emotional response and that the results could be consistent and reproducible (an important factor in establishing a truly scientific measure), made me much more certain about the aspect of objective evaluation of art. Apparently, evaluation of creative works is NOT “just a matter of opinion.” If it was possible to measure emotional response to music, I extrapolated that it could also be done for visual and textual art. My point is (before I get sidetracked into issues of objective evaluations of art and literature) that it was now obvious that “something invisible and consistent” does indeed go on in art. And that something touches our emotional responses. We DO communicate something in our works (beyond the obvious intent of the art or storytelling), and the response of the audience will depend on (1) how much we (the creator) “put into” the work and (2) how much the specific audience member responds to our particular emotional brew. This is where distinctions between a Debussy lover and a Wagner or Philip Glass lover come in: neither listener is more right than the other, they are just preferring different emotional responses. Do some creators put into their work and “invisible something” that other might find repellant? Oh, yes. It is apparently a reflection of some attitude or outlook on the part of the creator that generates a negative response in segments of the audience. And that, perhaps, is one of the conclusions one can draw from Clynes’ studies: art (be it music, visual arts or writings) is more revealing of the artist’s own nature than is generally acknowledged. And when we say of some creative work “It speaks to me,” we are being much less figurative than we imagine. Art talks and it reveals the secrets of its creator. (Isn’t that a scary thought for the reclusive artist? 😀 ) Sarah Beach trifles with artwork, but applies herself to writing with much more diligence. She’s the author of THE SCRIBBLER’S GUIDE TO THE LAND OF MYTH, and uses material from the book as springboards for posts on her blog.

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Guest Blog: Sarah Beach on The Metaphysics of Creativity