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thetawave — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:40:49 CST

Welcome All Artists and Creative Thinkers

Your story goes <here>

Think of this as your journal, your blog, your forum, your chance for your work to be published internationally. The intention of The Creative Experience is to collect creative experiences and connect creative individuals with each other all over the globe.

You can submit writing, art, video, sound, or simply link to your work. Find out what other artists think, and learn what it is like to live as a creative individual in other countries. If you know of, or are sponsoring opportunities for artists, announce them here. This wiki gives you the opportunity to post work in any media,create new pages, edit other people's pages, or lock your own.

Tell us about your creative process, what makes you think, feel, get up each day; how you integrate your life and your art. Use this space as a sounding board, a place to vent or praise or simply observe. The primary purpose of The Creative Experience Wiki is to connect artists with each other from every walk of life; and with people who would like to know what it is like to lead a creative life.

The secondary purpose of this space is to feed material into the first worldwide interactive collaborative book project on creativity. Following the publication of her first book, Parallel Mind, the founder of The Creative Experience, Aliyah Marr, intends to publish a book that mines this online space for material. Copyrights respected and by permission only, of course.

<----- Links Below to founder Aliyah Marr's Work ----->

Parallel Mind— Book by the founder of The Creative Experience
AliyahMarr.com —The Author / Artist
Radi8.org — Aliyah Marr's Artwork
FreshAsylum.com — Aliyah Marr's Design Portfolio
ThetaWave — Various Muse-ings of the Artist
The Gaia Paradigm— Collaborative Social Change
Law of Attraction Club — Coaching Site

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Rejection Notice

thetawave — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 15:30:33 CDT

Today my interactive work -- work that has been exhibited in two international exhibits: Siggraph and Digital Concentrate -- was rejected from San Diego's The Art of Digital Show. The judge was Neal Benezra, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I've heard of writers keeping their rejection letters from publishers; maybe I should keep the rejection notices I receive from exhibition "opportunities". I could make a pretty collage from them. I'd like to paste in the receipts for the entry fees as well, but the man from UNCLE wants those for his collection.

In NYC the fashion du jour seems to be for homoerotic art; I used to joke that, in the art world today, if you are not OUT you are not IN ... Maybe I should spoof the fad: and go for a sex change ... hmm ... That might be good photo essay material.

On the other hand, perhaps they are looking for the neurotic, self-destructive, political, demented, sick, abused, or abusive. I suspect that that is what they want; if so, then the capriciousness of the art world alone is threatening to send me down the artist's traditional slippery slope of despair. If I photograph my suicide for posterity, I might make it as an artist, but it would be too late for me to benefit from the publicity.

I remember seeing an exhibition in a gallery in a fashionable section of New York by an artist who decided to document what must have been the longest poop in history -- who knows what she had to eat to get her body to produce a product of that length and duration. This memorable work spanned at least 10 large beautifully framed photographs covering a pristine white wall at least 25 feet in length, and was said to take a full week to accomplish.

Each photograph showed the same scene: the nude woman crouched on the floor of what looked like the same gallery space with a long tail of it behind her on the floor — was it the same floor I was walking on? Where is the hygiene in art these days? My mother said that my brother, as a tiny baby, seemed proud of his poops too, but I don't think that she documented them for posterity.

So, let's see if I can think up something demented and twisted enough to get their attention next time. Van Gogh set us a dangerous precedent: his work was never accepted during his lifetime AND he was the first artist to go mad. I'm sure that is one of the reasons he is so loved by the public and the artworld: he was the progenitor of the mad, unbalanced artist that so populates "high art" today.

Or was it Gauguin who went mad first? Gauguin might have a chance to be popular today, not because of his work but because his madness came from an advanced case of syphilis.

Of course, to be accepted Gauguin would have to come up with a way to paint with the bacteria of his disease, and Van Gogh would have to go one further and paint a few paintings with his poor severed ear as an impromptu brush. In order to have style recognition he'd have to continue to sacrifice a few more body parts to the capricious art god, until he was duly accepted. Hopefully he could survive long enough with enough essential body parts to make it in the artworld.

Artists today are all supposed to be unbalanced, obsessive, compulsive, and sick. Or they are Sunday painters painting "nice" pretty landscapes to match someone's couch somewhere. Even at that level, most people willingly pay $5000 for a couch, but couldn't imagine parting with$500 for an original painting, even if it is so bland that it merges with the room decor.

I blame the critics and the galleries for this problem. People have given up trying to understand what art is, so they don't buy any. It's like not understanding what is the reason behind stock valuations. They don't want to be wrong, so they don't even bother to learn: besides, no one trusts authorities who sing the praises of the obviously sick and demented. The rest of us are supposed to work without recognition and live on air. Where is Theo when you need him?

— September 3, 2007 Aliyah Marr

Cross-over Artists

thetawave — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:22:52 CDT

Do you do more than one kind of creative activity? Feel free to contribute your experiences here.

Filmmaker / Video Artist

thetawave — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:23:36 CDT

A page for filmmakers and video artists to tell about their experience as creative individuals, share their work, and recount their experience as artists in contemporary society. Just click on EDIT above and add whatever you want below this line.

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Musicians / Composers

thetawave — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:22:12 CDT

A page for musicians / composers to tell about their experience as creative individuals, share their work, and recount their experience as muscians in contemporary society. Just click on EDIT above and add whatever you want below this line.

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Writer

thetawave — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:21:22 CDT

A page for writers to contribute their thoughts on the creative process, show their work, and share their experience as writers in contemporary society. Just click on EDIT above and add whatever you want below this line.

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Visual Artist

thetawave — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:20:51 CDT

A page for visual artists to contribute their thoughts on the creative process, show their work, and share their experience as artists in contemporary society. Just click on EDIT above and add whatever you want below this line.

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Poet

thetawave — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:19:50 CDT

A page for poets to relate their experience, share their work: written or spoken. Just click on EDIT above and add whatever you want below this line.

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Exhibition Opportunities

thetawave — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:15:22 CDT

Please add to this page any opportunities that you know of ...

An Embarrassment Of Riches

thetawave — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 23:41:17 CDT

People often talk about a feeling of emptiness inside: I first heard of this phenomenon in a book by Mark Epstein. He seemed to think that this feeling was one that was universal in human experience.

I've got to admit that I have never had this feeling; so I do not feel that it is essential to the human experience. My basic feeling is the opposite: I feel very full. I have felt that I was so full that I was near to exploding since about 13 years old, when I made a conscious commitment to pursue a passion for art. I am more inclined to feel frustration at not being able to work creatively. To continue the analogy, the feeling of creative frustration is a feeling like one is exploding inside a small box.

I lead a simple life, without much in the way of material goods; I have no children, no plans for retirement, no thoughts for the future, no investment in anyone else. On the surface, one might say I am poor in the things that most people value. Yet, I feel incredibly rich: I am rich in ideas, in visions, in dreams, in aptitude, in talent, in the arts, in health, in imagination, in love, in friendship, in relationships of all kinds.

I have never felt the need to have any children: I suppose because I see my work as my children. Giving birth to a painting, a movie, a design, a dance, a poem or prose is a process that I really enjoy. Sometimes I feel as if I am pregnant for a few years with an idea for something: I incubate it like a hen on an egg, until the moment is somehow right. Sometimes a piece is executed quickly; sometimes, it is painful and slow. But it always feels like giving birth in that in the end you look down in amazement that you produced this new thing that has never been in the world before. It has something to do with you, but it is also a complete entity in itself.

As for love, I feel very wealthy indeed. I have learned to love everything around me: that includes myself as an element in the natural world. I feel others love me in whatever way they can; I ask for nothing more than that which they are willing to give with a free heart. I don't feel the need to be loved, because I feel that I live in a loving universe. I once picked up a book in a bookstore called something like "101 Ways to Make Love": I furtively opened the cover to find that the author recommended such things as writing poetry, making art, appreciating nature, etc. Since then, I realized the only way to feel absolutely loved and secure was to be in a state of being in love with everything.

If I had ten lives, I could not possibly follow all my interests, all my passions, nor pursue all my visions, or develop all my creative ideas. Like the famed rich king, Croesus, I am rich beyond all imaginings.

I have never wanted a traditional life. I have come to the conclusion that it has less to do with talent or aptitude, than with the desire for something "other" that produces a life such as mine. In other words, I simply desired something else, and was prepared to pay the price of my creative freedom.

In my opinion, most people don't desire more, or dare to even dream that they might be able to have more. Perhaps they are afraid to take the risk and lose all; or they are afraid of success, or of being different, of being a "loner".

I think that we all ask for the life we have; some of us are simply more conscious of what is happening. So, as the genie in the bottle warned, "be careful what you ask for!" You might just dare to ask for more, and end up with an embarrassment of riches.