The creative process is one of humankind's great unfathomable mysteries. The experience captured in the photograph above is one of my own classic examples:
I had no thought except to write a title in the sand to make my mind feel more certain and solid about my future creative intentions. Somehow I thought that if I wrote it in the sand it would be a statement to myself that such a manifesto would somehow come into being. As I was enjoying the process, my thoughts were drawn to the Normandy beach landings in World War II, and how symbolic beaches seem to be considering that in the UK, we live on an Island. I could not help but think of all those thousands of lives lost on the Beaches of France in WW II in the fight for freedom. How could scenes of such natural beauty become killing grounds of such base destruction of human life?
I knew that in an hour or so the tide would rise and the sea would erase anything I wrote in the sand. It was just a temporary mark soon to be washed away. As I came to dot the two letter I's in "creativity", I had a beautiful inner feeling that two hearts were more appropriate. Then as I went to dot the
third "I" in th word manifesto which had been written by Joanne, a friend of mine who had invited me down to Cornwall; I realised I would not be able to, as there was already a large rock there embedded upon the beach in the exact spot above the
third "I". It was by pure chance she had written the word manifesto there, as it was where I had written the word "creativity". But somehow, in my mind the rock was symbolic of something I couldn't quite grasp at that moment. All I knew and felt, was that somehow it seemed perfectly appropriate the rock was there, and would remain there long after the words and we two people had gone.
We finished the beach markings and looked over the words; but again, for some reason, I felt an intuitive sense that it was not quite complete. A few minutes passed in this relaxed state of this feeling, and then gradually I felt a slow warm glow within myself, an almost strange mental and physical sensation that somehow led me to mark the symbol of Yin and Yang inside the final letter "O".
It was at this moment that Joanne who had clambered up the rocks behind the beach to get a view from above took this photo, one of series she took as she documented our collaborative creative process. I had never written the words on a beach before, and never in this way with these spontaneous additions, even though I have written down this idea probably hundreds of times before. Somehow, in that moment, I felt that for a few fleeting moments, everything made absolute perfect sense.
Two years later, as I post this on the internet now, I realise that the two hearts could represent myself and Joanne, and the Yin Yang could represent both our masculinity and feminity. Or maybe it's an collective unconscious representation of all of us.
Why and how the creative process in humanity occurs is a mystery, I just know that it makes me feel really alive, in tune with my-self, nature and the Universe. Every single human being is creative, humanity has always been creative since the beginning of our evolutionary (creative) process, being-creative is what we are.
(A Grain of Sand is Connected To The Whole Universe (Zen Philosophy)
This is what I refer to as Creative Zen, I always wonder what future use I can make of each single object I find that has had a previous life with someone in the Community. Days, months or even years later, the single perfect opportunity arises that brings several objects together for a single social art use. The feather I found a few days ago, the ink two years ago, waiting to be used, and the candle holder a few months ago. So I will write a few hand written invites with this collection of items. Which means they are no longer separate objects discarded by life and nature; they have been recycled into a new living art process of creativity and community.
I have three weeks to do something with this, what would you do? This is the largest and most impressive frame I've ever found. For the first few days I felt intimidated just looking at it! I've never painted anything this large before, but somehow following my own process of creative Zen, I feel ready for it. The right frame at the right time, I walked past it for a month wondering whether it was too much for me, but then a strange coincidence happened which decided it for me. I guess I'm now in the right frame of mind. Although, it's It's taken me almost a week to decide where to hang it, let alone anything else. Let's leave it for a while, and begin the real work.....
