On Creativity

It's fitting that this, the first of my blog posts, be triggered by an article on creativity.



LA Times- September 29, 1989 - Anne C. Roark - Creativity: It May be More Than Biology



I searched for an online posting of it to no avail. The wonderful thing about the article is that it stresses the importance of time spent alone and a personality that absorbs solitude as nourishment.



My mother gave me the article. Bittersweet. She's 74 now and after a stroke her ability to paint and create is lessened. I look at her now, so fragile and paper thin, rowing with fierce determination and tiny effortfull strokes through these last years of her life. She is working, head tilted forward, with the endless focus of someone whose body no longer supports their spirit. When she cannot paint, she writes out painting lessons. The woman who prided herself on never learning to type is playing hunt and peck on her computer. Fierce, tiny, effortfull strokes.



I wonder if I got my creativity from her. Nature vs. nuture and whatnot. I know I got my physical voice from my father - as well as my ear. He's in assisted living in LA - mostly drifting into other worlds and coming present to clutch my hand and tell me to get him out.



Both my parents are artists. My mother a visual artist - my father a jack of all trades artist. The two of them seem to have been more capable, more creative, more able to produce worthwhile work than I have been. So many memories of my mother painting - my father sculpting, singing. Now that they are both twisting round the Maypole tighter and tighter, I search for a way to shift the pattern - give them more time. Give them back their capable hands and strong backs.



Art is hard work. Physical, draining, focused. My mother and father cannot do the physical work of their art anymore. Their eyes have layers of shadows, cast by the undone, unfinished, unmade. And the ironic thing is that now they both have solitude and time to do their art. Endless hours stretch before them, each one luring them on to that moment when the ribbon runs out and is tied off, ending the dance.



Will that be me? Will I finally have the time and solitude to create, when I'm no longer able to do so? I'm not scared of growing old. I'm scared of growing unable.