Blog

by Shelley Kerr

This is my story about the relationship between art and life and how this has played out for me. It is about the creative impulse or motivation or inspiring events that have shaped my artistic expression. It is also about sharing with you a few of the creative pathways that I use to get the job done.

Without going into a deep, philosophical dive into the meaning of life or the meaning of art…why even try to separate them? Life informs, digests, ingests, inspires, transpires, evolves, devolves…into the expression of art. And art reflects, dilates, points to new directions, helps to emote, learn, conspire and inform…the human experience.

My creative path started in high school with a very cool art teacher that let us explore and play. I was welding in the shop, throwing clay on the wheel and building sculptures by hand. A seed was planted. Years later when faced with my father’s death, I decided to buy some clay, build a pack of Camel cigarettes and then cathartically, destroy the cigarettes that “caused” my father’s cancer. I never built the cigarette pack, I just started sculpting the human face and taking art classes.

Now, I am fighting my own cancer. This battle has driven me to a more creative state. This is a precious time. I could have died 2 years ago, but I’m alive and feel healthy. I’m in high gear to express life and art through sculpture, dance and sharing music with my beloved husband. I choose life, expression, joy, sharing—all forms of love--over despair.

Overcoming obstacles to creativity:

I hear so often from people, “I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” There’s an inner judge that comes in and says, “You are SO bad…just throw it away before anyone sees it.” I’ve experienced this too. I had to address this judge and point to the door and command, “GET OUT”! This gave me room to play. That’s when the courage to just create—to just start somewhere--came pouring in.

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious,

the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” 

Albert Einstein

Image from the Institute for Advanced Study

Here are some ways that I play and create art.

The Intellectual Approach for “To Live”

Getting cancer, and wanting to express it creatively, threw me into a dilemma. How do I represent this life-threatening, ugly disease in a positive manner? I had to think my way through it. I could build a life-size human bladder IN BRONZE (which caused me to both smile and cringe). Or build a sculpture representing the flame of life, which would symbolize my experience. This didn’t work for me either…too general, too meaningless. So, I let it go and let the challenge stew away in my mind. I needed some time.

“Creativity involves not only years of conscious preparation and training

but unconscious preparation as well.”  

Oliver Slacks

I cannot recall the exact tracing of how I came upon the idea of using the Greek language for the “To Live” piece. It was some combination of conscious and unconscious effort. But I knew it was right. This knowing is a very calm, quiet place. I just knew. The rest of the creative process was just puzzling it through to an end result. This is how and when I play.

The Dream Approach for the “Nebra Sky Disk” series

I had a dream about the 7 Sisters star constellation…The Pleiades. It was one of those vibrant dreams, where you wake up very aware of the specifics. The dream vibrated. OK…I got it. I was going to do something around the Pleiades as a sculpting project.

A color-composite image of the Pleiades from the Digitized Sky Survey

NASA/ESA/AURA/Caltech

Through a couple of random events, in the course of just living life: running errands, shopping, eating, and exercising brought The Pleiades to the surface again. One day I found a really cool book at the bookstore called The Big History. It is a beautiful, visual book starting from the Big Bang to current times with a view to the future. The very first plate in the book was an image of the Nebra Sky Disk which included, along with the sun and the moon, a representation of The Pleiades star constellation. It was a sign!

LDA Sachsen-Anhalt (Photo by Jaraj Liptak)

Halle State Museum of Prehistory, Germany

What made this even more interesting, it that the Nebra Sky Disk is old bronze…1600 BCE found in Nebra, Germany. Its makers accurately placed the Pleiades constellation on the sky disk as it would have been seen in the German sky in 1600 BCE.

Bronze and The Pleiades? There’s that knowing place again. The rest of the creative process was just puzzling through it.

The Theta Wave Approach for the “Nebra Sky Disk” series

So, the project is set. I know I’m doing something with the Nebra Sky Disk. The idea is in that ruminating phase: the conscious and subconscious collaboration.

A year ago, I started getting acupuncture therapy. I love acupuncture! Some folks are bothered by the needles…or the idea of needles. My experience has been that the needles are so small that you don’t feel them. Once the acupuncturist has set the needles, they are invisible to me; however, I want to stay still so as not to disrupt them. A perfect opportunity for theta brainwaves.

In his book, The Creative Brain, Ned Herrmann describes theta waves as a type of brainwave that occurs in a drowsy state or during a repetitive activity. This state can also lead to nice ideating…the flow of thought. Sometimes, I fall asleep during the session, but more often I’m just playing around with sculpting ideas. I’m daydreaming. This happens at other times of my day, maybe during a long shower or a walk.

Image: Ned Herrmann, The Creative Brain

Amazingly, Ludwig van Beethoven may have used this same approach. In his biography on Beethoven,  Johann Aloys Schlösser states, “He went on walks in the woods to come up with ideas, solutions, new themes. He would then return to his studio and capture it all.”

In Beethoven’s words, “Then the working-out in breadth, length, height and depth begins in my head, and since I am conscious of what I want, the basic idea never leaves me. It rises, grows upward, and I hear and see the picture as a whole take shape and stand forth before me as though cast in a single piece, so that all that is left is the work of writing it down.”  Ludwig van Beethoven

Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820

It begins to make sense that, even when he had lost much of his hearing, he could still write amazing music…he could see it.

Back to acupuncture, I will go into this relaxed state and play around with ideas. The Nebra Sword piece came about this way. Oftentimes, I will wake up from the session and I’ll notice that my hands are raised up in the air as if sculpting an imaginary object. Cool.

An added plus is the removal of the “You can’t do this” judge. In an article, “What is the function of the various brainwaves?” in Scientific American, it states, “The ideation that can take place during the theta state is often free flow and occurs without censorship or guilt. It is typically a very positive mental state.”

So being in a theta brainwave pattern, I can play and daydream without the school yard monitor hovering around! The judge is removed.

The good news:

The good news is that there is more than one way to skin a cat…more than one way to a creative experience or result. Over the years, I have become more and more comfortable and dependent on these approaches with the great anticipation of new approaches coming my way.

This is my story: my high school art room experiences planted a seed; the event of my father’s death set me in motion as a more serious sculptor; my own battle with cancer has sent me into overdrive as an artist.

Somewhere along the way, my inner judge disappeared releasing me to play. I now see creative results in other parts of my life and in the lives of people around me. Cooking a meal, planting a garden, running a business, planning my day and playing with clay are all creative expressions of life.