The act of creating art necessitates a dialogue between the artist and the medium, whether its painting, knitting, sculpting, photography etc. This interaction creates a real time dialogue and dynamic that emerges between the artist and what is being created

When an artist is comfortable with his media/tools this process can continue in a more fluid way allowing a direct rhythm to go unimpeded between creative input and output. This groove is set up between the interplay of internal and external dialogue and it is this exchange that is the harbinger of creativity and allows the expression of oneself to flow.

A particular harmonic is created when this process is in actuality and it is this energetic in conjunction with the artist’s intent that brings to objectivity the creators personal expression. A certain dynamic is set into motion when one initiates a creative loop which brings forth a subjective response which is translated into objective form which causes a response again from the subjective which is part of the feedback loop of what is expressed. You can understand this if you think about a painter putting his first mark on a blank canvas. When the canvas is white the situation evokes a different response than that of when a canvas has its first mark on it. Now the artist is not only affected by his intent but by his first mark, depending on color, line, form etc. how it changes the dynamics of the white canvas. The subsequent marks will affect the process similarly along with how the new marks interact with the first marks etc. and so on until the work is finished. This process in fact creates a loop between the artist and the medium, whether it is clay, paint, collage etc. This internal loop is also working in conjunction with the hand eye and body language that is initiated during the creative process. Other factors that can also affect this dynamic are environment, which takes into consideration all stimulus that affects the artist, light, time of day, music, furnishings, etc. All of this is part of the finished piece which is colored by mood, emotion, life experiences etc. Many of these factors are taken for granted because they are part of the conditioned illusion that envelops us from the moment we open our eyes for the first time until we have given up our last breath. It is through the interaction with this subjective/objective loop that can open up new possibilities to the artist if in fact he learns to tune his awareness to the rhythm of this interactive artistic loop.

This self-motivated process feeds off the subconscious when one is lost in the process of doing. One may find that time is not ticking at the usual increments; the world and cares of our daily life disappear into the background, so to speak, time seemingly stands still and there is only the act of doing and creation. This creative dynamic is the magic moment that we as artist live for when undeniable bliss is experienced and a feeling of freedom is present as the artistic adventure unfolds. In the background the internal dialogue is always present and checking in with intent that must be present in order to carry out the individual work. The creative loop is a distinctive state of mind, dynamic and at the same time a balance between intent and the freedom of creativity.     This precarious balance is what the life of the artist depends upon to bring forth the magic of creativity.

Jung believed that a human being is inwardly whole, but that most of us have lost touch with important parts of our selves. Through listening to the messages of our dreams and waking imagination, we can contact and reintegrate our different parts. The goal of life is individuation, the process of coming to know, giving expression to, and harmonizing the various components of the psyche. If we realize our uniqueness, we can undertake a process of individuation and tap into our true self. Each human being has a specific nature and calling which is uniquely his or her own, and unless these are fulfilled through a union of conscious and unconscious, the person can become imbalanced.

Jung wrote, “A great work of art is like a dream” and he said, “[W]hen an archetypal situation occurs we suddenly feel an extraordinary sense of release, as though transported, or caught up by an overwhelming power…That is the secret of great art, and of its effect upon us”

“Trust that which gives you meaning and accept it as your guide.”jung

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams.

Who looks inside, awakens.”

•”Education for creativity is nothing  short of education for living.” Erich Fromm, Creativity and Its Cultivation, 1959.

WE ARE LIMITING OURSELVES IF WE PERSIST IN CATEGORIZING AND COMPARTMENTALIZING THE ARTS, DWELLING ON THEIR DIFFERENCES INSTEAD OF NOTICING AND ACCEPTING THEIR SIMILARITIES.  a substitution for “THE ARTS” with “HUMANITY” would work for me as well DH.

EXPERIMENTS MAKE IMAGINATION CONCRETE. Man Ray

Kant maintained that morality and creativity do not follow causal, scientific law, they exits in in a unique realm distinctive from physics: so called meta physics.

When you enjoy the process you have a greater chance of enjoying the end result, the creative sum…David Hoptman

log·ic n sensible rational thought and argument rather than ideas that are influenced by emotion or whim.

Keep in mind when reading this blog that abstract thought must be dealt with in an abstract manner!

From time immemorial there has been great deliberation and profound speculation regarding the actuality of intuition. When we elicit this word we have little or no tangible basis for dealing with it is a concept. It is a mercurial and mysterious process that we as human beings are all familiar with and yet when one tries to solicit this course of action within a logical or rational context it in essence vaporizes and is lost somewhere between cause and effect.   Many of us have personal experiences in our lives where we have relied upon intuition and have full faith in the knowledge that it truly exists. This presents a problem inherent with syntax not in a grammatical sense but in a more abstract and less logical sense.  Logic and intuition do share a common ground, without one the other would not exit.

Intuition is a subtle and elusive counterpart to rational and logic. We all inherently possess the ability to call upon our intuitive powers. Some of us are more finely attuned to our intuitive process while others trying to become conscious of this invaluable ability search in vain, usually in the wrong places. Intuition cannot exits within the context of everyday consciousness because this is where logic and rationality create the foundation for what it takes to subsist within our daily routine that we ground our very being in. It is this ironic interrelationship that stands in the way of one being free of past conditioning. The very essence of our being is submerged among this very interrelationship. Creativity thrives on intuitive processes without which artistic endeavors would lack a basic vitality and dynamism necessary to communicate to the viewer this particular form of expression.

In actuality all of us use our intuitive senses far more than we are cognizant of. It is the rational mind/ego that takes credit for making the proper decisions that propel us through life. So as we begin to delve into getting a handle on our intuitive prowess we begin to understand that we are far closer than we think to summoning up this exceptional quality to augment our creative process.

Intuition is based on a certain combination of trust and knowing, many times we will ignore that veritable inner voice that speaks to us and put it out of our minds to later find out that in fact we should have listened to our original gut feelings. This same enigmatic place within our psyche is where creative process can channel intuition and creative spirit. While it dwells nowhere in particular yet it exists everywhere and has a certain ethereal tangibility, the moment we grasp for it, it slips away, this is the mercurial property that makes the concept of creativity difficult to grasp.

Intuition can be comprehended as one looks to abstract art and the subtle language that is spoken with form, content, color, texture, line etc. This rhythmic language of the artist is in fact a language that does not speak in a rational tongue but transcends rational and logical thought. We as spectators and communicators of abstract art can in someway draw conclusions as to what the artist has expressed through his abstract language and through intuitive process find a common ground among others viewing the same art works. Is it good or is it bad? Is there a consensus a commonality regardless of gender, race and creed. Art is a dynamic process and intuition is an integral part in the art making process.

I will continue to post my take on creative process, this post is part one stay tuned….

Mara's Interior HDR toned down using Photoshop B&W adjustment layer.

HDR / High Definition Resolution photography software is definitely one of the greatest additions to Photography since the onset of pixels. HDR allows photographers’ to capture a dynamic range not previously possible before. Dynamic range is the contrast ratio between the lightest and darkest areas within a scene. Film and digital capture prior to HDR lacked the latitude to capture a scene with an extended tonal range, common example that we have all been confronted with: a bright sunny day with deep shadows and blasting highlights.

In the days before Pixels photographers used graduated density filters in order to compensate for the brightness of the sky and the Zone System which allowed photographers to compress tonal values within a scene into eight zones of gray plus a pure white and black. Getting the zone system set up required numerous tests with film, exposure and development as well as dark room printing times etc. not a method for the faint of heart and quite time consuming in the beginning to get the system fine tuned. Today photographers can capture an extended range of tonal values using HDR Software from Photoshop or Photomatix; the process is straightforward and relatively easily pulled off.

HDR software allows the photographer to make multiple exposures per scene; exposures will range from highlights all the way to the deepest of shadows. Like magic the software will blend the over and under exposures together creating an image with shadow and highlight detail in full tonal fidelity, a magical feat compared to days past. There are still some inherent problems with HDR technology but in most cases HDR software can be coaxed to pull off a natural looking high dynamic range photo without the over exaggerated color saturation which produces the HDR LOOK.

Newbie’s to HDR can easily be seduced with HDR LOOK that frequently distracts from the content of the image itself. With a few Photoshop tweaks and a bit of understanding in regards to photo imaging the HDR software can be tamed down to impart a natural looking beautifully balanced image with an extremely long dynamic range that still preserves the HDR PUNCH. When the viewer has to ask “IS IT HDR?” My take is; that is the point where HDR is successful.

Once you have processed your multiple exposure HDR image using either Photoshop or Photomatix software the next step in the workflow is to back off the overstated color using the Black&White adjustment layer in Photoshop. Apply the black & white adjustment layer to your image and you will see that your image has been morphed into a gray scale. Simply go up to the opacity slider in your B&W adjustment layer and slide it over to the left for starter to around 20%or 30% you should see that your overly saturated HDR image is now looking a lot more realistic and has maintained its highlight and shadow detail.

You are now ready to fine-tune your tonal values within the image with the color sliders in the B&W adjustment layer. At this point you can easily create a vector mask and tweak out the area’s of saturation that you would like to fine tune, add a little dodging and burning to create the proper relationship between the highlights and shadows and your done, its that simple!

The HDR process is inherently noisy so a good noise filter will help reduce the pesky color noise in your image. Noise Ninja is a good choice as is Topaz Denoise. Both work well and are a great addition to digital imaging. A bit of tweaking with a noise filter and Photoshop layers adjustments will raise the level of your photo capture and the over exaggeration of HDR will be a thing of the past. You will have found your balance using HDR, a powerful tool and a straightforward process to incorporate into your digital workflow.

Take a look at a website by Trey Ratcliff/stuckincustoms. Trey’s site is filled with lots of good info on the HDR process, although in my opinion his HDR photographic aesthetic is somewhat over the top in regards to exaggerated color however he has a good following. I can see how easy it can be to be tempted by the HDR LOOK, it allows one to put aside foundational basics for traditional photography on the back burner and leaves the outcome to the software without the intervention of the photographers’ personal photo aesthetic.

With a little de-saturation as stated in the above article and some basic color balancing techniques most HDR images could pack a more realistic punch and in my opinion appeal to a larger and more sophisticated audience. You can find examples by visiting my Blog site. That said, enjoy the journey of creative process and chances are you will enjoy the results. Creativity is dynamic; the magic is in the doing!

Mixed Media photo, charcoal, pastels, gold leaf.

This blog was written abstractly due to its content; I hope you can enjoy the literary freedom as I have.

Communication is interaction, the arts produce multiple levels of expression simultaneously, hence the inimitable beauty of artistic expression. Form, color, light, texture, sound, the written word are all part of the way that we as creative beings can directly communicate with one another on multiple levels as well as across the gulf of time and space. The arts are the apex of human evolution and form is the means of communication. Form is recognized musically, literarily and dimensionally. The illusion of our perceived reality is this that we are separate from what appears to be outside our individual form.  The conditioning for this response has been our heritage since recorded time began, we must keep fresh in our minds eye as not to be habituated through the conditioning of our daily lives patterning. As one moves through their daily routines with a plodding regularity it isn’t uncommon to become oblivious to the beauty surrounding us and hence take for granted the uniqueness of the very forms that populate our lives Form is the way in which our physical reality expresses itself. When we become immersed within our particular continuity of what it is one does to survive and carry on with the basic necessities that resolve life, as we know it, we loose certain sensitivities and become callous to the innate power of forms. The diversity in which forms abide and interact with each other in relationship to size, color, texture, light, etc. filtered though the human perspective/ psyche generates a fascinating interdependency. Nature in all its myriad ways of recreating itself has defined the way in which form relates to function. Form demands a certain aesthetic harmony in order to fulfill its particular place within the realm of practicality. This basic interaction is the skeletal core that we as human beings have come to base our reality on.  This conditioned awareness resides so deep within our consciousness that we need to stop and step outside of our habitual patterning in order to truly appreciate all the beauty that we are part and parcel of. The essence of the beauty of which I advocate is form, it is form in of itself that has the power to evoke a certain emotionality that in turn brings about that transience of imagination and intuition.  We must learn to resonate with form and at the same time recognize and be able to appreciate the purity of form in nature. Hence when we see a tree we must as artistic initiators learn to see the form of the leaves, stems, trunk in conjunction to the textural qualities of the bark limbs and in fact how they interact with their surroundings, it is this totality that we label tree, it is the sum that captivates us. It is our evolutionary heritage that we base our particular feelings on in conjunction with habitude. We are entranced by visual vocabulary; it is this mindset that creates our conditioned response to reality. This is a primal vocabulary of survival, evolving in order for us to survive as a species, and now is the time to realize that we can peer beyond this internal communication process allowing us to move into the next phase/module of creative process. It is with this premise that we move beyond these conditioned responses in order to evolve artistically. The accumulation of responsive conditioning that forms the core of our innermost dialogue will not easily be replaced by an alternative and more progressive ways of interacting with form in our reality. This assimilative process will require a new directive that creative process will facilitate.

It is this purity of vision that we need to reincorporate into our context of creative being. When we learn to see in this way the proverbial veil that clouds our perceptions will be made more transparent and previously unknown universes will emerge. This is the power that forms have. Forms can directly awaken our innermost feelings and bring about change directly in our observation feedback loop which has the ability to process this information while bypassing the common daily consciousness or psychological loops that have habituated our core being due to   redundancy of our mundane daily lives and tasks. The artist as well as the appreciator of fine arts must make a direct effort to break this pattern of stagnation in order to accentuate his immediate awareness which will allow the innate feelings attuned to the diversity of forms to speak directly to our inner being. In this way form is abstracted or transmuted into a different sort of occurrence enabling us to interpret with a fresh minds eye and by pass the mundane, in this way experience the purity of form.

The presence of form arrives in a guise of color and texture   relative to its surrounding environment this is part of the dynamics of form and space. Factors that interact with the perception of the viewer create a basic set of parameters in the minds eye. There is a dynamic going on within the mind in conjunction with what is being perceived, allowing emotions, perceptions and memories to be transmuted into a substrate where creativity and imagination in tandem with learned craft and skills can bring about a vibrant metamorphosis. Creative process interprets with intuitive clarity what it is that we as creative beings wish to express.

The mastering of ones craft is a necessity to the creative artist as well as having a deep seeded penchant that is tied to the need to express ones self. Ideally one must first have a basic set of tools at hand in order to begin the voyage from within. These tools or techniques to which I make mention are for the most part learned skills that need be almost second nature so as not to stifle the delicate initiatory process of creativity. Example being a photographer having a firm grasp as to how tools affect the final outcome of his vision from the camera, film and lenses down to the process of printing the final image.  TO BE CONTINUED…

Mixed media photo..platinum palladium print