May - Courage to Create and Valery "The Course in Poetics" Response

Week Nine Response

            This weeks reading encompassed notions of creativity relative to limitations, boundaries, form and chaos.   The material also covered the elements that fuel and motivate the creative response.  Rollo May suggests that the creative act is the process of making order out of disorder within the structure of limits and boundaries.  Valery covered a lot of thoughtful insights that run parallel with many of the previous authors.  However, he deconstructed the questioning mind in such a way that resonated deeply with my artistic beliefs.  May and Valery affirm my beliefs that creativity is a recurring process that gives meaning to our world, and that mystery is the driver.  More specifically, we can use May’s and Valery’s writing to illustrate that creativity is activated by limits, that it creates meaning for our experiences, and that questions and the unknown are the primary motivators of the creative spark.

            May writes about the limits imposed on us by life.  More specifically, he identifies our death, our intelligence, and the circumstances of our lives as limits (113).  He writes, “Conflict presupposes limits, and the struggle with limits is actually the source of creative productions” (114).   Valery might appreciate this notion illustrated in economic terms.  That is, economics is the distribution of limited resources against unlimited wants and desires.   Like Valery, I use an economic term due to its simplicity and understandability.  People simply want more than they can have, and the limitation of resources forces them to make decisions.  The decisions forces cognitive thought and creative aspects engage to form meaning within the limits of our understanding.    

            The notion of limits is furthered through the discussion of form.  May writes, “Form provides the essential boundaries and structure for the creative act” (117).    He furthers it with, “This line limits the content.  It says what space is within the picture and what is outside-it is a pure limiting to that particular form” (117).    My chosen field is photography.  My form is the frame.  Whatever I wish to convey, I must take a three-dimensional world and translate it to a two-dimensional plane that fits within the boundary of the frame.  The frame is the main limiting factor.  However, creativity gives me options that work within the frame. I can imply depth and space through leading lines.  Partial objects are unfinished gestalts that are completed by the viewer.  I can imply time through long exposures or determine the sharpness of a background with the aperture.  I can lower angles and perspectives to give the feel of a child’s view.   Boundaries limit what can physically be in the image, and creativity expands the tools and ideas of what can be conveyed.

            May writes to the formation of meaning through creativity and imagination.  He writes, “They [people] are struggling with their world – to make sense out of nonsense, meaning out of chaos, coherence out of conflict” (125).   May writes that people do this through imagination and by constructing new forms and relationships with their world (125).   May summarizes that passion for form is a way of making meaning in life, and that imagination is the key function that participates in the formation of reality (133).  Finally, he writes, “Creativity is thus involved in our every experience as we try to make meaning in our self-world relationship” (133).   May believes that an incomplete gestalt forms whenever we encounter something we do not understand (131).  Our minds, however, automatically complete the gestalt through the use of imagination and creativity.   May emphasizes that creativity is used to form meaning in our everyday world with everyday encounters.  This suggests creativity is used for all types of encounters and repeatedly throughout the day.  It suggests our minds are not completing one gestalt, but they are continually forming and reforming gestalts to better understand our relationship with the world.  

            Valery’s writing speaks to the questioning mind.  May might consider that Valery is speaking to the mind that is intentionally creating unfinished gestalts in the search for understanding.  Valery writes, “When the mind is in question, everything is in question” (105).  Further, he states that when the mind is in question, things are in disorder, and disorder is the mind’s fertility (105).   He writes, “… fertility depends on the unexpected rather than expected, depends rather on what we do not know … [rather] than what we know” (105).   Valery articulates two thoughts that are personal to me.  It is my position that “I do not know” is the single most powerful statement we can say to ourselves.  It enables us to be imperfect and to question our environment.  Another personal deep believe is that mystery and secrets are what draws the viewer into imagery.  Mystery is a thing not revealed.  A secret is a thing revealed, but not shared.   Valery and May summarize that questioning one’s environment opens the view to the unknown.  By our very nature, the unknown forms incomplete gestalts that engage the imagination (the search) and creativity, the meaning formed within our limits.  Valery wrote extensively to the creative process.  However, the described notions run deep with me and Valery gave me better words to understand it.  

            May’s book has proved to be most excellent.  Valery’s work was informationally dense and the ending statements are worth their weight in gold.  Both authors affirm and expanded my notions of creativity.  Limits create boundaries, both physical and psychological, that form boundaries.  Boundaries force the use of imagination, and creativity provides interpretation and meaning.  Questioning our environment intentionally forms incomplete gestalts that prompt the imagination.   It would seem that creative minds are drawn to the unknown, or mystery, and that a powerful way to engage creativity is to simply ask a question.     

Works Cited

 May, Rollo. The Courage to Create. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 1975. 11-54. Print.

Valery, Paul. “The Course in Poetics: First Lesson.” The Creative Process: A Symposium. Ed. Brewster Ghislen. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1985. 92-105. Print.