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IMAGINATION AND CREATIVITY OR WHEN DID TRUE ART DIE?

Dr. D. H. Parsons

There is a place we can all go in order to find every answer to every question ever asked.  It is a place

where solutions to problems are easily attained.  I'm speaking of the human imagination.

The human imagination has been around for a long time - in fact, since the Beginning Point when God used His imagination to create human beings.  And this is the wonderful fact that brings to light the importance of our capacity to "imagine" things.

Genesis 1:27 -  "God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them."

We must remember that the words "imagination" and "image" have the same root.  If God made us in His Image, then it stands to reason that a large part of that "Image" must consist of a direct reflection of God's own "Imagination."  And if that's the case - and it surely must be - then we humans have the ability to use our imaginations as God uses His in the process of "Creation."

Now - we cannot create something out of nothing the way God does - the proof to that is in the fact that no one has ever done so.  And we can profess to be able to do that all we want; we can use positive affirmations and be as optimistic as we wish, but it just isn't going to happen.

A few years ago I actually experimented with this during one of the Institute's Spiritual Services.  I held up a bottle of water and I told the class I was going to attempt to turn the water into wine just as Jesus did.  So I stared at the water for a while and I used positive affirmation and all of the other New Thought manifestation methodology ... but I just couldn't do it.  The water remained water.

Then I held the bottle higher and I asked the entire group to concentrate as hard as they could using the same protocol of positive affirmation and manifestation methodology.  And ... again ... the water remained water.

The fact is that we simply have not reached the stage of conscious development to do that type of "creation."  We cannot make a boulder turn into a Buick.  But we can "create" on a lesser scale, as in the case of certain healing techniques, or the creativity that we associate with the Arts.  In fact, this ability we share with our Creator, would certainly explain the presence of great Artists and musicians within our midst.  Wouldn't it?

Just where in the world did someone like Picasso come from?  Or Van Gogh?  Or Beethoven?  But this leads to other questions:  If we are all made with this creativity in our genes why can't we all be as creative as Picasso?  Why can't anyone and everyone write something comparable to Beethoven's Ninth?  Why is the Art world inundated with insipid, overdone nonsense that is being passed off as Art? And why is it that the music world can no longer exist without fireworks, amplifiers and ridiculous costumes to cover up for really bad music?

Simple.  When God created us "in His Image" He was referring to His Spirit Image and not His Physical Image.  And although Art supposedly comes "from the soul" - it is also driven by the physical brain, which is highly influenced by cultural life and human fads and, quite frankly, all of the plain, silly nonsense that floods - I mean FLOODS - our contemporary consciousness, as is readily displayed in the entertainment media of our day.

And here's the real rub: it's getting worse.

I have a friend who, himself, was a fairly well known Artist within the New York and Los Angeles Art Circles.  His name was, Don Karwelis, and he was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known. Don Crossed Over just a few years ago, but long before that, back in the mid-sixties I remember Don making the statement, "The Art world is bankrupt."  He went on to explain how he believed "Art" - all forms of Art from painting to poetry to music or whatever - had run it's course.  That very little in the way of true "creativity" was going on and that it would reach the state when Artists and Art galleries would be rehashing old Art styles and techniques and putting new slants on those in an order to stay alive.  And that they would still "pad their egos" by claiming they were "Great Artists" simply because they went through the motions of "doing Art."

Don was right on.  I recently bought an issue of Art Forum magazine - a magazine I used to buy religiously 30 years or so ago.  Now, I haven't picked up an Art Forum magazine in many years, and as I leafed through its pages I couldn't believe what I saw.  It was filled with the same old stuff Artists were doing 30 years ago!

I mean, "performance Art" and "happenings" were an embarrassment back in the 70's, but to see that the "Powers That Be in the Art World" are bringing them back as if they are something innovative ... good grief.  They are just as bad and just as embarrassing now as they were back then. Absolutely nothing original or imaginative - just corny and over done.

And, of course all the young "Artists" and the students in universities all over America (and the world, I suppose) are copying this tired old fad and they all think they're hot stuff, as if they had invented it themselves and they're really "creative."  And all the tired old Art teachers are patting their students on the heads and telling them how wonderful they are for producing some sort of Art "happening" (or "performance") that is not only a rip-off of the old concept, but as shallow as shallow can be.  And I hate to sound like an Art critic here (nobody likes them right?  And I have never been an Art critic - just an Artist) but nonsense is nonsense no matter how you whitewash it.  And no one is inventing anything new.  And it's time the Art World admitted this.

Looking further into several Art magazines on the market, I found that even the painting styles today are pretty much the same as they were 30-50 years ago.  Absolutely nothing I saw in the magazines was new or inventive.  Nothing was "creative" in any way.  Don Karwelis was incredibly prophetic in his observations.

And don't get me wrong; I loved the contemporary Art of the 50's and 60's.  I still love it to this day.  And, perhaps in many respects it was truly inventive at the time of its inception, and therefore "creative."  But my point is that "creativity" is only "creative" when the first guy does it.  The copycats in the future simply don't count.

Pure "ART" should come from the soul.  And I believe in the case of Picasso or Mozart or Van Gogh, they were as close to pulling this off as anyone throughout history.  But even their souls were influenced by culture.  Mozart was a pompous ass.  Van Gogh ... well ... there was his terribly narrow-minded view of life and religion ... and that ear thing. Picasso was an absolute dilemma.  I believe Picasso was perhaps the greatest Artist who ever lived - and I would love to explain why I believe this but it would take an entire article - but Pablo had his problems as well.

The fact is that we all have problems.  But the problems do not arise from our Spirits, they arise from the cultural influences around us.  If a mental giant like Picasso could have somehow circumvented the bombardment of nonsense that society leveled upon him daily, then maybe he would have painted from his real soul - and what incredible masterpieces those might have been!  But, he, like all humans, was influenced by the physical.

If, as an evolving culture, we wish to truly develop the ability to "create" - as in turning water into wine, healing terrible diseases by simply asking them to go away ... or even simply thinking ourselves halfway across the galaxy to visit other worlds instead of flying around in some sort of primitive rocket ship  - then we must, AS A CULTURE, make the decision to dump the childish nonsense that we are so enamored of today, and begin to seek "enlightenment" in our communal whole.  As long as there are those who continue to feed on childish pablum, the adult main course will be withheld from us.  And rightly so, because we would most probably ruin it if it were given to us in the state in which we find ourselves today.

And this is the point where I must apologize to all of those who believe they have some sort of New Age "powers," and to all of those who think they have been given "the gift of healing" (it seems to be the popular fad these days to be a powerful New Age Healer), and to all of those who point crystals at people's problems as if they were magic wands ... because I have to tell you, you're not only fooling yourself, but you are shamming those who hire you for your services.

Yes there are those who walk among us who are genuine Healers.  And there are ways to use crystals, and those who know how to do so.  Just as there were those great Art prodigies and geniuses, I believe there are Healer prodigies and geniuses in our midst.  But these folks are very, very, very, special and they are few and far between.  And they are very easy to distinguish from the "quacks."

Real Healers?  ... well they heal!  They heal every time and the healings are all permanent.

And there are REAL ARTISTS out there who are painting REAL PAINTINGS that

are coming from somewhere deep within them.  I exhibited one of my paintings at an Art show recently in a town (that will remain anonymous) and I was discouraged at what I saw.  Just like all of those magazines, nearly everything in the show was superficial and unoriginal.  And don't get me wrong, most of the work was well done... it had been executed in a "professional" manner so that it was relatively pleasing to the eye. But ...

In this particular show there was a lot of what I call, "College Art," wherein someone paints in the style of some Artist that lived back in the 50's or 60's, only the influence is obvious and the copies are really bad.  There were lots of craftsy people doing the obligatory weavings and homemade paper thingies ... and these were fun to look at, but in no way innovative (but most of these people are fairly honest about the fact that they are doing "Crafts" and not "Art" and they admit that it's mainly for fun ... for some reason "Crafts" people don't have the same egos to deal with as "Art" people.)

And I'm not being an elitist when I write that, for me, at least in the area of the visual Fine Arts, there are only two categories of what I call TRUE, "Romantic Art," and those areas are painting and sculpture. (And pardon me now as I leave the world of music behind because I know very little about it, only that I can sense something special about Classical music as opposed to modern, in that the Classical form is an amazing talent that is to be respected as well as enjoyed for its "creativity,"  ... and modern  ... is not.)

I really am not an elitist.  I am just able to distinguish the real thing from the bogus.  I believe "that" is a part of my heightened intuitive skills.   And I would dearly love to awaken one day and turn on my computer and have the MSNBC page pop up proclaiming that an incredible new Artist has been discovered ... someone who had the true "Art Spirit" (the "kunstwallen") of Pablo Picasso ... the inner drive of Vincent Van Gogh ... the romantic heart of Dante Gabrielle Rossetti ... the incredible inventiveness of Walter Gropius or Frank Lloyd Wright ... and even the whimsy of Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, or Andy Warhol.

Someone out of the blue who was able to give a shot in the arm to the pathetically limp World of Art that we find today ... a world driven mainly by ego, greed and nepotism ... and not by talent.

Now back to that Art show I was speaking of earlier.  In that show there were two little paintings and one little teapot that stood out from all the rest.  They weren't really original or inventive in style, but they were well done ... extremely well done. You could tell that the Artists who painted them were sensitive and Romantic, and that they had the Art Spirit within them.  They hadn't cut out a piece of cardboard and then scratched a few lines and a signature on it and tried to pass it off as "modern" or "innovative - and then placed a million dollar price tag on it. (Robert Rauschenberg comes to mind here.) They hadn't even tried to copy the style of long dead Artists and call it their own.

The painters of the two little paintings (I didn't catch their names) had just painted from their hearts and their two little landscapes came out like a beam of sunlight hitting the opening of a dark and dank cave.  The paintings were wonderful.  You could feel an energy flowing from them that was different than any energy felt at a "happening," or from any of the other works in that show.  These were pure paintings that just spoke the language of the creative mind and the loving heart.

And that sweet little pot ... I've been an Artist for nearly fifty years and I've had exhibitions in major galleries all over the West Coast ... and I've seen a lot of ceramics in my time.  Back in the 60's teapots were all the rage and they came in many different shapes and sizes - but nothing really special.  But that one little pot at that show - the artist's name was Mary - that little pot was the most exquisite teapot I have ever "experienced" in my life.

That simple little clay pot came very close to bringing the world of "Craft" over into the world of "Fine Art."  It was so delicate and so sincere and so filled with personal love ... I can't even describe it on these pages.  It was perfect.  The perfect teapot.  And it had a modest price and didn't win any awards.  It was just there ... existing in time and space ... being perfect.   And I'm sure that the artist, Mary, who created it had no idea what she had done.  That she had gone beyond the physical (Metaphysical) and touched the realm of True Creation. (Or maybe she did...)

And for me ... this was a Metaphysical experience.  Because the grateful emotion that I felt from viewing these little diamonds - the paintings and the teapot (and especially that teapot) - in that sea of mediocrity restored my faith in Art, and the fact that there are still "those out there" who are not producing "stuff" in order to perpetuate the nonsense, but just to release that "beyond the physical'

Art Spirit that is housed within them.  Just like Van Gogh ... just like Picasso.  Thank you, Mary.