I enter the vernissage with my friend who studied art. As we approach the group of her acquaintances I feel the people measuring me with a glance. About half of them will reply to my greeting and the rest will pretend to see through me. I am not wearing a hipster hat and I have a two years old Nike shoes for their horror. Now, when the weird atmosphere is, what am I supposed to talk to them about?
How is the real artist defined? By studying at an art university? Or perhaps they are the ones who go to all exhibitions and savor cheap wine with a haughty look? And what about those who at first glance are not recognizable from homeless people by their clothes and at a second glance from homosexuals? Based on what do these people decide whether they’ll talk to me or look through me? And here I just understood the designation “poser”.
Poser Theory
The poser is tryint to look like an artist because he thinks it is cool and strives for attention. Such a person does not know what true creative energy is. The difference between the artist and the poser is that the artist understands his or her individuality and the creative process brings him happy feeling no matter what the result of the work. The artist relies on his pure creative energy. On the contrary the poser clings mainly to the praise he reaps for his creation or even better how much money he will be able to charge for his work and especially how cool he will look.
When you find yourself in the company of poser, you don’t feel well. Such a person is constantly measuring himself with others and trying to act as he thinks the right artist does. He would make a group of posers like that where defamation and humiliation would rule. The energy of his actions is fear. Fear of not being good enough. The poser does not understand the essence of creative energy. But his fear is not his fault. Society still does not understand human individuality.
Each of us is creative by nature.
It is a natural human trait. It is up to you to what extent you develop it. If you accept your individuality you will create with a calm feeling in your head and without fear. You will create because the process of creation satisfies you. You will not need to measure yourself with others, but you will admire human diversity. Creative energy is unique, infinite and inalienable.
My fear and doubt has been dissolved by Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Thanks to her I finally confirmed that I felt right. I create from my inner creative energy that wants to manifest. When I’m not creating, I feel like I’m going crazy and my head is going to explode. The energy just wants to go out and I don’t care about the result or the evaluation.
The Big Magic book by its content appealed to me so that I made excerpts which I summarized in the ebook (to read here). When I put the information from the book together with the information I already knew, I came to the following conclusion.
One can draw inspiration from two sources.
The first source is negative emotions. It may be any drama, such as an unhappy love or when someone spits on your breakfast in the morning. When I put it in the context of Maslow’s pyramid, it is a disruption of basic needs, such as a threat to security (war threat, social unrest, etc.) or lack of social belonging (unhappy love, bullying at school, at work, in the family, etc. ). This source of inspiration is guaranteed and easy to reach. Just as things are easier to destroy than to build, we evoke negative emotions easily.
The second source is virtuous. It is pure creative energy. I would say the highest energy one has. When I apply it to Maslow’s pyramid again, it is the highest point – self-realization. Although it is more difficult to get into this state of mind. Inspiration from this source is liberating and much stronger. You’re not working at this point but you’re playing. By being creative you get lost in time and space, feeling pure happiness and expressing your individuality. Big Magic is about this source of inspiration. It describes all aspects of creativity as natural to man and points out the importance of having a healthy relationship with one’s creative energy.
Maslow’s theory says it is necessary to satisfy all the lower layers of the pyramid so that one can engage in self-realization. But how will he explain the paradox of denial of some of the things that fall into the lower layers for being able to create? I’m doing it too. From time to time I deny some things in order to have money for material and time to create that brings me a happy feeling. Therefore, I do not think it is necessary to have all the bottom layers fully satisfied. This paradox explains the hunger for self-expression and self-realization. For some people, the top of the pyramid is as important as the bottom.
Self-realization means: “the desire for self-fulfillment, the tendency for him to be actualized in what he is potentially.”
One should live in integrity with who he truly is and thus achieve his potential. If we want to know what our potential is we must first know ourselves – our individuality. By receiving our individuality with all the positives and negatives, we can reach our potential. Expressing our individuality in any form is creativity.
Expressing individuality is creativity.
Since creation is highly individual, one can decide whether a piece of art is good or bad only by one person’s subjective opinion. I describe the evaluation criteria in my next article here.
