A Photo Project
I take these with abstract expressionist mentality, mood, perspective, eye.
NatureWorks
Autopix
I called this an autopix when I did them. I could do the outline with my eyes shut. Love to re-kindle.
The Reader and the Writer
Just read this here:
The reader is the musician of the book
https://austinkleon.com/2018/04/23/shelf-life-2/
“Books are frozen voices, in the same way that musical scores are frozen music. The score is a way of transmitting the music to someone who can play it, releasing it into the air where it can once more be heard. And the black alphabet marks on the page represent words that were once spoken, if only in the writer’s head. They lie there inert until a reader comes along and transforms the letters into living sounds. The reader is the musician of the book: each reader may read the same text, just as each violinist plays the same piece, but each interpretation is different.”
—Margaret Atwood
This of course rhymes and echoes with the concept of the Canon of Creativity – conserves > warm up > spontaneity > creativity.
I’m writing this post as it goes well with a thought we developed recently about The Writer.
The writer is the servant of the vision.
The writer can give the voice to the vision. The writer is not you, or the whole of you. The writer has a job to to. The vision needs no bounds. The writer will prune and edit in a way the visionary can’t.
The discipline of the writer will paradoxically enhance the vision.
Austin Kleon & doing art.
I’m a fan. I get his newsletter and calendars.
Look at this beautifully crafted blog post. Inspiring in content and also in form. This would win a blog Oscar if there were one.
https://austinkleon.com/2017/07/13/want-to-be-an-artist-watch-groundhog-day/
Such a simple point. Do a little art everyday. Presented by a thousand art coaches, but here it is fresh and inspiring.
~
Now on a more personal more. I committed to work on my art book 15 minutes a day in January. Managed that for about 28 of the 31.
At day 28 I got tired. But more than that I got stuck. I wish I’d read his post then, but never mind, back on the wagon.
The interesting thing is that the book is about the hero’s journey. If you read Austin’s post you will see that he does not like the word journey for the art process. Making art is not linear.
But then again there is a pattern.
Once you are in that “special world” there is really no turning back and going forward there are just tests and ordeals. Until you get through, till you are on the road back.
No way am I through with my project. I’m facing tests and ordeals. And here is a page I’ve got of just that.
This is reflexive moment on the journey. I’m illustrating the trouble I’m in. Back to groundhog day.
__________________________________________________
BTW there are plenty of blog awards. One blogger of the year features the slogan Eat, Sleep, Blog, Repeat.
Joined online creativity group with Jan Allsopp
I’ve joined a creativity group with Jan Allsopp who I’ve known online for a long time. My commitment is for a month (at least). Committed to 15 min a day for the month of January – I’m working on a book. I’ll post more about the book as time goes on. Today is day six and I’ve produced a lot each day. I find it helpful to have such a strong focus. A simple idea, choose a route – i.e. the tools. Mine are the Google files (Doc and Slides) I’m using to write the book. In addition we create ‘cruise control’ – a voluntary frame in which to work. Some voluntary restrictions I’m using are:
- No new sketches.
- Work on the book proposal only, not the whole book.
Also good to see other peoples art – so far so good. It will get harder as the month intensifies.
This is what the spreads in the book look like:
Roles Create Roles
“a role is the functioning form the individual assumes in the specific moment he reacts to a specific situation in which other persons or objects are involved” (Moreno, 1977, p IV)
Lets take a list of roles, these are from Max Clayton’s article (Clayton, 1994), it is a convenient list, and it is the one that got me to think about this:
Artist
Playful fun-lover
Coach
Companion
Adventurer
Manipulator
Teacher
Despairer
Self-doubter
Guard
Frightened, abandoned orphan
Anxious and suspicious fantasiser
Angry controller
Condemning critic
Friend
Father
Good listener
Lover
Perfectionist
For each of these there is as Moreno puts it: “a specific situation in which other persons or objects are involved.” We can grasp the role it is possibly in relation to from the role.
|
Artist
Playful funlover
Coach
Companion
Adventurer
Manipulator
Teacher
Despairer
Self-doubter
Guard
Frightened, abandoned orphan
Anxious and suspicious fantasiser
Angry controller
Condemning critic
Friend
Father
Good listener
Lover
Perfectionist
|
Art Audience Muse
Playmates
Trainee
Companion
Mentor
Sucker, victim
Student
Stubborn controller
Critic
Invaders
Absent Parent, Threatening bully
Challenging person or situation
Helpless follower
Self doubter
Friend
Child
Speaker
Lover
Slob
|
Creating Change in a Role Relationship
These role pairs will change as one of the roles changes:
The teacher can’t teach without the student
Lovers need lovers
If the manipulatee ceases to be duped and becomes assertive the manipulator can’t manipulate.
If there is no speaker, become a good listener.
If there is no artist, become an appreciative audience and contribute materials
Be loving and love may come your way.
Stop criticising, appreciate and praise and you won’t be with a self-doubter for long.
Role relationships
There are different types of role relationship. Max talks of complementary roles and symmetrical roles.
“The diagrams made it easier to be aware of the complementary and symmetrical role systems that developed with other people and of the fact that there was an increase in complementary role relationships. As ability to analyse, plan and enjoy life came to the fore, so those roles pertaining to intimacy increased. There was a welcoming of closeness and an interest in complementing what others were doing. The aggressive approach to others diminished and along with this a lessening of symmetrical role relations and of the competitive dynamic that is associated with these. There was also a development of a real sense of being a role creator. Previously there had been much more of a sense of being a mundane person. A look at the diagrams also confirmed the ability to create forms of expression through which life purposes could be fulfilled. The experience of being a role creator was accompanied by an increase in motivation.”
An example of complementary role might be speaker / listener – and this would increase intimacy, as max suggests.
Symmetrical roles can escalate and be competitive e.g. Talker / talker can become shouter / shouter.
But some symmetrical roles can be intimate lover/lover gardener/gardener
Google search found the book online Note: I have a physical copy.
References
Clayton, G. M. (1994). Role Theory and its Application in Clinical Practice. In P. Holmes, K. Karp, & M. Watson (Eds.), Psychodrama Since Moreno (pp. 121–144). London: Routledge. Retrieved Tuesday, 9 February, 2016 from aanzpa.org
Moreno, J. L. (1977). Psychodrama Volume One (Fourth ed.). Beacon, New York: Beacon House.
Writing
I’ve been writing but not in this blog.
I’ve been working on three papers to qualify as a Trainer, Educator and Practitioner in psychodrama. Now more or less done. A paper, study on Moreno’s social science methodology, needs a lot more work and research. A book proposal, I’m doing that at the same time as the research paper, it uses a different part of my brain.
Maybe I can put more snipets here as I think about this work?
The reason I don’t is that I use Evernote – and it replaces one function of this blog, notes to myself.
Can I be more journalistic here?
Maybe.
Coevolution, invention, creation of the psyche – the relational paradigm
There is a flow in the evolution process.
Grass had to exist before grazing animals could evolve, they in turn had to precede carnivores.
These examples perhaps are best expressed in the principle of the “next adjacent possible”.
A brief digression: I recently ran across a novel way to think about this question. In evolutionary theory, there’s a concept called the “adjacent possible,” coined by scientist Stuart Kauffman.
The “adjacent possible” refers to the change that’s available to you — i.e. adjacent, next door – versus the change that’s not.
From Stuart A. Kauffman — Reinventing The Sacred Amazon
The process is holistically connected to the mutual adaptations in each species. Grasses develop ways to survive grazing. Herbivores evolve capacity to run, and carnivores develop sharper teeth and claws.
This idea is sometimes captured with the phrase co-evolution (Wikipedia):
In biology, coevolution is “the change of a biological object triggered by the change of a related object.”[1] Coevolution can occur at many biological levels: it can be as microscopic as correlated mutations between amino acids in a protein, or as macroscopic as covarying traits between different species in an environment. Each party in a coevolutionary relationship exerts selective pressures on the other, thereby affecting each other’s evolution.
Earlier post exaptation, a related concept.
I’m imagining this whole process as envisage the world of the psyche. The changing nature of how we relate to our being. Everything from collective rituals, art, monks meditating in a cave, group therapy, psychoanalysis, conjoint family week and couple therapy.
The investigations above, summed up as:
- Adjacent possible
- Coevolution
- Exaptation
Imagine how these apply to the coevolution/invention/creation of the psyche.
(Why I say evolution/invention/creation is evident from this post about psyche this post about the nature of the psyche, about how it is not a thing, yet not nothing either, is relevant.)
Freud was before Jung. The idea of an unconscious and a method of working with it that was possible in the world was available to Freud as a medical clinician.
Moreno was in part a reaction to Freud. Group therapy and conjoint therapy was possible.
Moreno and Buber had found or invented an idea about the nature of the person being in the relationship.
Hendrix is pioneering the ice that being is relationship.
The relational paradigm is the now a niche that has opened, a shift in the culture and new ways of attending the the psyche are possible.
Moreno’s idea that this could well transform science is also on the cards as an I-Thou relationship with things is also possible according to Buber.
Podcasts I’ve enjoyed lately
I’ve been using Pocketcasts on the iPhone. The first one I’ve liked in all these years. The iTunes one never satisfied and the way I used to do it – was clumsy. But it worked and was essentially what I did on the Palm.
Who Shall Survive?
This is a rather interesting but puzzling link to Who Shall Survive. It has a different subtitle. Adds Helen Jennings as an author.
The description there about relationships is one that I have not seen summed up so well before. The idea is central to the work, but not often one that people focus on.
Who shall survive?: A new approach to the problem of human interrelations
Jacob Levy Moreno, Helen Hall Jennings
1 Review
Nervous and mental disease publishing co., 1934 – Psychology – 440 pages
In approaching the contents of this book, the reader must not expect to find society or social groups considered as if they consisted of the sum of the individuals composing them. Wherever two or more people are functioning as a social group that group not only consists of those individuals, but, more important perhaps, if that is possible, than the individuals themselves and without which their functioning as a social group cauld not be expressed, are the relations which maintain between them. It is these intangible, imponderable and invisible aspects of the situation which enable the mathematical sum of a certain number of individuals to function as a social group. Dr. Moreno’s book might he described briefly as a study of these relations between individuals. Dr. Moreno develops a technique for a process of classification which is calculated, among other things, to bring individuals together who are capable of harmonious inter-personal relationships, and so creating a social group which can function at the maximum efficiency and with the minimum of disruptive tendencies and processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).