A Serious Question About Creativity....

[companyman]

When I was in grad school, I had a professor (who has since become quite successful in the international Art market), tell me that dalliances in music would be detrimental to my development as a visual Artist. I always have that statement echoing around in my brain each time I pick up the guitar, I feel guilty. Any opinions?

[SunofNothing]

BS- if you're creative enough you can learn music things from visual arts and visual arts things from music. There's a lot of crossovers-texture,contrast, color, shape, and form.

[renula]

I had a professor who told me the same thing, almost gave up. But you know what? {censored} it... I kept at doing both.

 

I have been a designer for many years, got my MFA, had taught at college and never quit playing music...

[Poltergeist]

i think being an artist is not defined by regular standards. i dont think someone can quantify how much work you can do.

 

it's just about what you are able to do at the same time, imo.

 

if you love both, go with both.

[Hand Amputation]

That's an interesting theory.. But I think you can have time for both.

[(⌐■_■)]

there is no real devision between music and art, only as we perceive it

[t-rey]

I think he may have been trying to convey the message that sometimes a person can expend their creative energy on one outlet (music in his argument) instead of in other forms of art - and theoretically this could cause the other forms of art to not realize their full potential.

 

I personally don't buy into that because a person will express their creativity in whatever way feels best of most appropriate at the time. A person could just as easily say that if you don't express some of your creativity through music than your visual arts would suffer from having only one creative outlet.

 

Plus - John Dyer Baizley.

[devi]

One word... cyriak

 

[YOUTUBE]-0Xa4bHcJu8[/YOUTUBE]

[soulsonic]

I've met a surprising number of talented musicians who would rather be talented painters... myself included.

[mlabbee]

Creativity is a discipline- as long as your musical endeavors are a part of that discipline, rather than a "dalliance," there's no reason why your music should be detrimental to your visual arts work. That said, if you let your music become an excuse to not do your "serious" work then he could be right.

[TomCTC]

 

Creativity is a discipline- as long as your musical endeavors are a part of that discipline, rather than a "dalliance," there's no reason why your music should be detrimental to your visual arts work. That said, if you let your music become an excuse to not do your "serious" work then he could be right.

 

 

Well said.

[mlabbee]

 

 

 

OMG - I love this. That music is hypnotic!

[renula]

 

oh this is so good...

[Phil O'Keefe]

I guess people with synesthesia are automatically hosed then, huh?

 

In general, I disagree with your professor. I get the time / work aspect of it; you have a finite amount of time you can dedicate to developing your talents, and dividing it can be detrimental... but I see creativity as a broader subject, and limiting the artist to any one type of outlet is in and of itself detrimental to the creative muse. Who's to say you might not develop an interesting audio / visual artistic hybrid? The lines between various forms of "art" are blurring more and more as technology advances - I see no need to limit oneself creatively if you have multiple interests.

 

da Vinci should have stuck with painting and forgotten completely about engineering... right?

[Clewsy]

Tell that to Arnold Schoenberg, an expressionist in both his music and art. A lot of musicians dabble in visual art, there are bound to be a lot of cross overs and one can help the other.

[devi]

More of Cyriak's work here : http://www.cyriak.co.uk/

(he does both the music and art / animation btw)

 

Anyhow... my thoughts (and experience) on this subject is that there is plenty of room to excel at both in one's life. The trick is, if you want to be equally masterful in both regards, you'll most likely be sacrificing a lot of social and down time most of the populace is used to having in their lives.

 

... but if you love what you do, regardless of how many things you love to do, why would you let what anyone thinks about the quality of such things stop you from doing them.

[companyman]

 

there is no real devision between music and art, only as we perceive it

 

 

each discipline has unique rigors that are specific to the concrete and political realities in their particular areas. A "Blue Chip" Art dealer will not be easily swayed by a dilettante, at these levels, commitment is tested. I'm sure professional musicians have specific hoops to jump through to get to the major league philharmonic orchestras.

[companyman]

I should add that my Professor was far from a dick about this advice, he is a very cool, brilliant Painter with a capital P. Amazingly erudite, witty and also dabbled in Jazz saxophone. He played along to Coleman Hawkins recordings with Duke.He only did it alone and never in public, for the reason stated in the OP.

[Ryan.]

Two words to prove your professor wrong:

 

Adam Jones.

[devi]

Two words to prove your professor wrong: Adam Jones.

 

[companyman]

I think he was alluding to the fact that we all in our personal Artistic arrogance, think we are DaVinci, when in fact we are not. That it is prudent to focus on one thing, and perhaps with due diligence, we MIGHT add to the furtherment of a creative endeavor. This "everyone can be special" attitude is born of the "participation awards" handed out to children so that they don't feel left out.

[Ryan.]

 

I think he was alluding to the fact that we all in our personal Artistic arrogance, think we are DaVinci, when in fact we are not. That it is prudent to focus on one thing, and perhaps with due diligence, we MIGHT add to the furtherment of a creative endeavor. This "everyone can be special" attitude is born of the "participation awards" handed out to children so that they don't feel left out.

 

 

Might being the key word. If its important, go for it. As for me, I'd rather have the well rounded life. I'm not going to quit wakeboarding to try and improve my snowboarding, I'm not going to quit guitar to get better at CODMW2, and I'm not going to quit my job to try and make my band a success. I enjoy everything I do, or I wouldn't do it. If I stopped golfing so much I'd probly be better at riding my unicycle, but I just love playing golf too damn much.

 

I kinda see the point he is trying to make, but I think doing many things helps open your mind to new ideas. Like sculpting something might make you more aware of size and shape, which might improve your painting skills. And projecting feelings through song might help you grasp the feeling you want someone to share when viewing your watercolor.

 

{censored} I dunno.

[companyman]

 

Two words to prove your professor wrong: Adam Jones.

 

 

I'm sure that there are a great many examples of people, I can name quite few, John Cage, Nam Jun Paik etc., but how do we determine if our own pursuits are not suffering from distraction?

[One Man Banned]

Tell that to Arnold Schoenberg, an expressionist in both his music and art. A lot of musicians dabble in visual art, there are bound to be a lot of cross overs and one can help the other.

 

I was going to cite the same example.

[chris_d]

When I was in grad school, I had a professor (who has since become quite successful in the international Art market), tell me that dalliances in music would be detrimental to my development as a visual Artist. I always have that statement echoing around in my brain each time I pick up the guitar, I feel guilty. Any opinions?

 

 

Bull{censored} (IMHO) statements such as this, are exactly the reason that i left art school.

 

Some of the best(meaning creative, inventive, productive) musicians i know, are also some of the best(meaning the same) visual artists.

 

As others here have touched on, creative endeavors, do not tend to respond well to the application of any strict rule. There are artists who work that way(i.e. applying strict rules to their own work) and that is a very different thing, but i am highly suspect of(to put it... nicely) any creative person who would try to enforce their own strict rules on any other creative person. To me that indicates someone who doesn't understand creativity very well.