Interests Creativity | Philosophy | Ethics
Aesthetics
Critical reflections on art, culture and nature. The following links will take you to my writings at AbleStable:
Considering the purpose of art is constructive if somewhat perplexing. The more we think carefully about our chosen medium of expression, the more we become capable of exploiting its power and potential...
The cooperative senses of taste and smell provide pleasure and warn of danger. Their impact in the arts is less significant however as compared with the dominant senses of sight, and hearing. This column investigates the importance of taste and smell in the context of creativity, and aims to shed light on these senses which seem confined to our primal sensibilities.
What makes an object, music, words, or a person, beautiful? Can a taste or smell be beautiful? Can we touch 'beauty'? Here are my thoughts on how we know that most difficult to contemplate, yet easily experienced quality we call beauty.
Creativity
The gathering of personal experience, knowledge, and skill, and the use of these qualities to produce an answer to a challenge of some kind. I beleive creativity is at the very centre of what defines us as a species. Creativity is at the heart of us all, it is what defines us as a species...
The following links will take you to my writings at AbleStable:
It is often said by writers, artists, and composers that their creativity is at its most prolific when melancholic. I ponder on this and argue that sadness is not a prerequisite of creativity, but rather that creativity is vital to our happiness.
Creativity is not confined to the chosen few who articulate their experiences in words, music, or another medium. We are all creative. Finding the time to encourage that creativity in ourselves is however often a challenge, but if we fail to flex our creative muscles, the enemy of inertia grabs a hold. This column provides a compact first aid box for that circumstance and aims to counter any uncertainty that your creativity is boundless.
Play is the fun in our lives. As we grow older, and if we have the temperament to do so, play evolves into creative activity focused towards an end: a poem, a tune, a painting, and for some the need to create brings enrichment that no other path provides.
Science is often viewed of as a cooler discipline than the arts and is not generally presented with the purpose of evoking an emotional response. Science seeks to help us understand and manipulate the world through rational reasoning, experimentation, and production, and yet creativity which is far from a purely rational process, is of profound importance in all scientific endeavour.
Play is often viewed as a pastime that is more for enjoyment and diversion rather than an activity of any significance. For many however, play is an ongoing and crucial element that is at the heart of their identity.
Our desire to name, define and categorise the world is testament to our need to make sense of it, yet many words are used in such different ways from one person to the next, the more they are considered, the more they confuse. The word 'artist' is one such word.
Where does our creativity come from? Some believe it is a divine gift, others that it is exclusive to those with a particular predisposition. Form your own view after reading this thought provoking investigation.
Philosophy
The study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, law, justice, validity, mind, and language.
Philosophy has been important to me since childhood. I was neither well read nor academic, but my early experiences of growing up in a complex family dynamic, and observing the actions of others and how that affected all parties led me to thinking...
The following links will take you to my writings at AbleStable:
Time defines our experiences and yet we understand so little of what time is. Does the pressure of getting things done in a limited time stimulate or stifle creativity? When we have little time to ponder, to take in what is happening, has happened, will happen, the desire to be creative hightens, and yet when we have time on our hands, the ability to create often runs dry. Is clock time the best time for the artist within? or is the absence of a sense of time the only time when inspiration bites?
Our interaction with the world is changing, and the interface between computer and humans which began with the keyboard is evolving in new, more intimate and profound ways. Within fifty years our next great leap as a species will have taken place.
As art and commerce becomes inextricably linked in our daily lives, so art looses its status and importance. Art becomes no more than decoration. Art becomes the fool's gold of our times...
Dementia is the name given to symptoms of confusion and memory loss which result from many conditions which effect and gradually destroy the brain, the most common being Alzheimer's. Dementia is not a disease in itself. Many of those who have, or are close to someone with dementia, experience a journey into darkness with little that is positive to offset their sense of profound loss. There is however one area of hope that is a powerful force that transforms the perception and experience of those with dementia: the phoenix of creativity.
There are times when creative professionals may be asked to work in an area that is in conflict with their conscience, when the work we do may in some way directly or indirectly support activities or businesses we would otherwise choose not to be associated with. This column is devoted to a scenario that touches on some of the issues surrounding this ethical dimension of offering creative services, and the actions that might be contemplated.
The value of art appears to diminish in the public's eye year by year. Contemporary art is now firmly established and promoted as a commodity, and the efforts of influential public relations firms solidify the cynicism and suspicion that so many now feel about art. Is art worth less or priceless?