The Creative Spark

Expressive Arts facilitator and educator Barbara Karmazyn talks with Carol about her work and inspiration.

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Retrieving the Ancient

“We, the artists, have to appreciate that our materials already come with their own languages embedded inside of them. So our materials are already expressing themselves. So the artist interfaces with the being of the material.”

Retrieving the Ancient – James talks to Carol Sill about art.

C: Hi James. We’re sitting up here on the roof, and last night you gave your talk, an artist talk called “Is there Anything Old Here?” and just now you were mentioning that we have to retrieve the ancient. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

J: What I said was: we have to put the brakes on and retrieve the ancient before we go forward.

C: What do you mean “we”? Who is doing this?

J: In culture. There’s a lot of energy in the direction of the new, and I’m kind of tired of it. What I want to do is make the old new, rather than make the new new.

C: And you do that in your painting work….

J: Yeah, I think there are aspects in my work that go backward rather than forward. Some observers of my work think that that’s not worthwhile but they’re just looking for the new – period. There’s so much more to perceive than the new.

C: So how do you perceive the ancient?

J: Well, you have to do your research. That’s a really good question. Where do we find the ancient? I guess one answer would be in the aspects of life that never change. Such as, the boring, banal and simple. The boring, banal and simple, I bet, is the same across time. And the thing is, that’s where the metaphysical truths are hiding in plain sight. That’s also the message of Pop Art. The Warhol soup cans, the Screen Tests that he did; there are some good lessons in Pop Art for all of us.

… is wrapped up in learning of language. I think there are only two languages to learn. One is the language of awakening, and the other is the language of materiality which artists know very well.
So on one hand we’ve got spiritual people, working hard, there. And on the other hand we’ve got cultural workers who are working hard where they are. It’s rare that those two worlds come together, and they need to come together.

C: What is the artist’s path? What is that?

J: What do I think the artist’s role is?

C: The artist’s path.

J: From what perspective?

C: Well, let’s say you were an artist and you wanted to take that way as a way of self-development and as a way of understanding the universe. What would that way be? How would you go there?

J: We have to - we: the artists, have to appreciate that our materials already come with their own languages embedded inside of them. So our materials are already expressing themselves. So the artist interfaces with the being of the material. That’s number one.

C: And things are discovered through that?

J: Well then the play begins, because you’re in play with the invisible, in a sense.

C: Would you say it’s kind of like alchemy?

J: I think so, yes. How is it that our materials, plywood, stone, canvas, paint, whatever, how is it that these materials can be as alive before we even touch them, as we are ourselves?
So when you’re making art, you’re not in it alone. The cosmos wants to play.

C: When you say you’re not really alone, are you talking about guiding spirits, that kind of thing?

J: Of course. It’s a good idea to give these guiding spirits form, and to acknowledge that that’s what you’re doing when you’re making art. In the end, you’ve given guiding spirits form. And you’ve collaborated. And they’ve chosen you, in that moment.

C: Is this like the muse, or is it past the idea of the muse?

J: It’s probably past the idea of the muse, but “the muse” will do.

C: Now some people say that everybody’s creative, and everyone has a creative ability somehow, in their life or in their work. What do you think about that?

J: Usually those statements are uninformed and misguided because on the one hand we are all striving to be artists, either in this life or the next or the one after that. At some point …

C: So you believe in the supremacy of “Art” with a capital A?

J: I believe in the supremacy of the creative process. But not everybody’s an artist – there’s no way. Let’s see your art, if you call yourself an artist. Where’s your art?

C: Can people use art as a way of awakening?

J: Well that’s what has to happen. That’s what it’s for.

C: There is some art that doesn’t seem to be referencing anything to do with awakening…

J: That’s because that art isn’t about anything. I don’t know what other reason to make art for other than to give form to the… what did you call them? Guiding spirits. If your creativity doesn’t do that, then what are you doing?

C: What would you say to somebody who is an artist but feels they’re in a bit of a box, they can’t find their way, you know, they’re caught somewhere. What kind of advice would you give somebody?

J: Where are they caught?

C: Well, maybe in themselves or in some idea of what art is or should be.

J: What would I say? …I guess try it on. If anybody wants to try on the idea that everything is will, then give it a try. I don’t think you will succeed very long. In other words, what gives our creativity its longevity? Only that depth of the infinite. If your work doesn’t have that depth then it has no longevity, and it can only have that depth if it’s in collaboration with the infinite.

C: And how do people find their way to do that?

J: Well, that’s what we’re all up against. If you’re an artist or even not an artist, we’re all looking for truth. And truth exists. And there are strategies and methods already expressed, there are clues everywhere. Artists are doing that. Read Marshall McLuhan: it’s all there. McLuhan understood the patterns of how to get there.

C: So how does being an artist change your perception of the world?

J: Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure how to answer that. How do artists see differently from non-artists?
If I’m finding answers in the boring, banal and simple, I know there aren’t very many other people doing that. That’s perception.

C: When you were talking last night, I think you were trying to help people learn to see. And that’s really difficult, to understand that language of art if you’re not an artist yourself. Is there any way that… I mean, what do you suggest to help people learn to see? To see what art is doing, or what art means.

J: I would say if you’re serious about perceiving then you’ll find the way. You just have to be serious about it. And you have to not be afraid to look bad. And not be afraid to isolate yourself as a result.

Somewhere… I read somewhere in a book about Judaism a quote from what I think was the Bible, that said: God says, “Make me known to you.” And that’s what the artist engages in. Should be, anyway. Make God known to you. Make truth known to you. Find it. Try it on. Hunt it down. Name it.

View the video of this conversation.

Retrieving the Ancient, and The Language of Art

James K-M talks with Carol Sill about art and retrieving the ancient.

“We, the artists, have to appreciate that our materials already come with their own languages embedded inside of them. So our materials are already expressing themselves. So the artist interfaces with the being of the material.”

* On the roofdeck, background sound is of the busy street below.
Link here for the text version of this conversation.

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Inspiration and Balance

Carol and Jim explore some of the connections between living a creative, spiritual and balanced life. Where does inspiration come from? Is balance useful and important? How can we journey deeper and deeper into our lives?

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Sharing Your Gifts

“One of the most important things to get through any blockages to creativity is to really understand that the gift is not yours. Your job is to channel, to express and as you said, the glimmer comes to you and its your job to embellish and make it more beautiful and make it more real and to bring it into expression in the world through your mind and consciousness, which makes it unique.”

Spirit, Creative Life and Sharing Your Gifts: Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill

C: Hello Jim, let’s talk about some of the ideas we wanted to explore for today. I know that you’re thinking a lot about talent and gifts and creativity, and tell me what you want to explore with that.

J: We have this idea of gifts and talent and creativity. Artistic people are often very spiritual people, and I think there’s a real connection there between creativity and spirituality and living a spiritual life.

And the first thing I wanted to say about the way I think about gifts is they’re not ours. They come from the universe. They come from God or the great spirit or whatever created us. If you think of the gifts as yours, it gives you a certain sort of thing, but if you think of your life and love, talents, as a gift, then it frees them up and ….Clinging, grabbing, holding is the opposite of open source and I think it’s the opposite of true spirituality too, that these things should be expressed.

The other thing I want to say: I’ve thought about this word “gifted” a lot, some of my children – two girls – have been described as gifted, one as an athlete and one intellectually. I think gifts are something that mostly people think in the world a little differently than I do. Some people think gifted means God gave you something.

My take of gifts, to be gifted, means that you have something to give away, something to express in the world. Giftedness doesn’t mean you’ve got a lot of stuff, it means you have things to give away, to share. So when you have gifts that doesn’t mean spirit gave you the gifts, but that rather, you have some gift to give to the world, to the people that appreciate your work, to the community that you live in.

That’s what I think about gifts, what do you think, Carol?

C: I agree with you, and I think it’s something that we should always be thinking about. And maybe what we should do is think about the flow, which is that when you have a capacity to express something, then you almost have a responsibility to enter the flow to enable that expression.

But it’s never really what you think it is, it’s something that maybe is larger than your idea of what it is. So the gift is an ability to open into what’s required of you. So there’s a bit of responsibility there, you’d don’t just toss it to the winds.

On the other hand I think everybody has something, everybody has come with something, some purpose in their life to be evolved or discovered. I would hesitate to name this person as gifted, and that person as without something to offer, because you never know. Once the circumstances, the place, the time, the atmosphere is correct, something pours out. And it could be simple or it could be complex: we have no way of assessing it.

J: Yes, every human is a unique expression of spirit and every human has, I think, things to share. If it’s just simple love, what could be more important or significant than that? Or if it’s an expression, an artistic expression, or an expression in commerce or business or relationships or making people happy, making people laugh, everyone has some way of expressing their own divinity, for sure.

C: And also we know there is the muse, the communication that comes to you, that enables you to have an inspiration, to follow that, to be inspired. I think that’s an important part of what we’re talking about, not simply that you have a gift…

I guess I’d say that you’re given an inspiration which doesn’t necessarily take you all the way. You get the beginning of it and then you have to follow that through. Follow it, then the gift is given. But if you don’t follow it the gift stays wrapped in its package.

J: You know, people, creative people especially… I work a lot with writers and writers talk to me about challenges and writer’s block and stuff, and I had a whole course on that at breakthroughwriting.com.

One of the most important things to get through any blockages to creativity is to really understand that the gift is not yours. Your job is to channel, to express and as you said, the glimmer comes to you and its your job to embellish and make it more beautiful and make it more real and to bring it into expression in the world through your mind and consciousness, which makes it unique.

But if you clamp down and try hard, “My Writing” “My Painting” “This is mine, I have to…” If you clamp in it tends to make it more challenging, more difficult. Still things can happen but it’s sort of constipated, it’s tight, you know? And if you really relax into the expression, then it flows beautifully.

Some people really know how to tap into this better than others. Mozart could write the most beautiful music very very easily and fluidly because he had a good access channel. Different people have different ways of doing it.

One helpful way to meet a creative challenge is to know its not yours, and relax and open and express – that’s my take on it.

C: You know art itself is a path, it is a spiritual path. Those who follow that path, and have that calling, are doing enormously deep and creative work that may not be recognized as “beautiful” in the eyes of society today but later on in the future it starts to become clear that this was actually extraordinary work. And the same with – like the Andy Warhol show that we just saw in Victoria, just extraoridinary how he embodied what it is.

I know you were talking about these challenges, and you said you might have some idea of how to face some of these challenges?

J: Like I was saying before, really it’s about opening to the experience, opening and giving up your ownership of whatever it is you’re trying to make or create, and to give that ownership up to the universe and just act as a unique channel or unique expression. You can do that by meditating, or relaxing, or even just making a psychological shift away from “me” “my” “mine” into “ours” “express gift” “share”. At least that certainly works for me.

And you were saying something about artists not always being recognized, or the creative and the importance of creating. I’d like to really make a point that an administrative assistant to an executive can approach his or her job as an artist and to express it with creativity and talent and craft and experience, too. Or you can be an auto mechanic or a tennis teacher or… you can be an artist – a person who creates with craft and intelligence and beauty in any condition.

And I think it’s really important to affirm that each person can be creative and wholesome and helpful and bring their own unique expression to their work, whatever that work is. It doesn’t have to be daubs of paint on canvas.

C: I think you’re talking about the art of life, or the art of personality, the development of character, the development of a full and whole human being as well as acting in your life as a whole an individual as much as you can. I think that’s the thing: to live in the totality.

Now, with the troubles in the world that we are facing, I know you do a lot of thinking about these things, I’m just wondering what your take is on this?

J: It’s of the theme of what we’re talking about, Carol. Because of the media, we really do have a lot of news about things that happen in the world.

By most objective measures, this is one of the safest and most peaceful times of all times to live in, in any urban environment, or in a rural environment. There’re less murders per 100,000 people than in any time in history. And yet because we have the media and the news, there is the voice of fear.

And sometimes, as creative people, and people hoping to live spiritual, wholesome lives, it can feel like there’s not enough or that we’re separate from other people in the world. That voice of fear, that voice of scarcity: I think nowadays the buzzword for that is “ego”.

That’s your ego talking, the separation, the smallness, the me. But we really used to call that the devil – all the fears and unhappinesses of the world. We can transcend the voice of me, me, me, mine, worry, fear, something bad will happen, because I think this universe is dying for the expression of happiness and love and creativity.

C: I think that one of the things people need to do, and pardon me for saying “should” is to really examine..

J: You say it better than “should” you said “need”.

C: It’s because we are being bombarded by - I don’t know how many, 36000 messages a second or something – that are telling us that we need a certain thing, we are inadequate in certain ways, that there are areas to be afraid of. So our entire desire-body is being pushed and pulled in every direction, leaving us very little self-understanding.

So it’s good to look at our media ecology, the environment that we’re swimming through on a daily basis, to understand who we are. Somehow to clarify that, then to clarify where you stand as an individual: the only way to do this is to remain open to the inner sources. Because then you get some strength.

J: And when you say open to inner, are you talking about open to intuition, or are you talking about practicing some kind of meditation or prayer on a regular basis?

C: Whatever you need to do, whatever kind of approach that you need to take. Both of them work. But basically relying on your inner intuition and refining that. And trusting yourself.

You have to learn that there is a voice inside of you that’s telling you who you are, what you’re to do, what your gift is, where you’re going, how to do it, it’s all there for you and it’s your own, and it’s our birthright. And that’s what we’re going for all the time, to connect there, and then to express out from that. From there you find a way out of the forest of influences.

J: Yes.

C: You wanted to talk a little bit about something to do with the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Can you tell me about that?

J: A metaphor, a way of thinking about it in the form of a story, of everything we’ve said today. All four gospels talked about the miracle of loaves and fishes, and they expressed it very similarly. There were about 5000 people there, listening to Jesus talk. In another version there may have been 4000 – there may have been 5000,4000 two different events, it’s not really clear what happened, but there were five loaves of bread and two fishes in a basket. And they passed the basket from person to person and every person was fed.

And remember when I said earlier the ego is my, me, mine, scarcity and that might be considered another way of thinking of the devil? Think of the miracle as Jesus somehow created an environment where those people kept passing the basket. Just think, if one person gets a basket and thinks, “Oh my god, there’s only two fishes here, I need to grab it and hold it and seize it.”

The miracle was that everyone took just a little bit and passed it on, and that they expressed and kept the flow going. They didn’t grab and they weren’t fearful that there wouldn’t be enough. They were open. And the miracle is that the basket kept getting passed from person to person. There was this openness, this flow that you express.

And I think that, when you have a gift – whether it’s your ability to coordinate your boss’s schedule well, whether your gift is to fix up cars or to manage a rock and roll band, whether your gift is to give your clients the best health insurance that is appropriate to them in their situation, in their company – if you really let your gifts flow, if you don’t stop that basket and think “I’ve got to get mine, I’ve got to get those fishes, I need to put another loaf in my pocket for tomorrow.”

If you can really continue to pass it on, then I think that is one of the real messages that Jesus came to give us, and that the Bible is written for: this sense of openness and sharing, passing things along.

Giving your gift, whether the gift is a basket or something more intangible. That can be a real miracle in our life and in the whole world.

And that may be the solution to our ecological problems too, if everyone really was more open to share and express.

C: That’s great. I know, it is – that’s what open source is all about.

J: And that ties us back to open source, thank you for doing that. Anyone viewing this, we’d love to have you on our little video camera and talk with you about your experiences and your understanding. Write your email down below and we welcome you to join, to sign up for the email up dates, or to get in contact with Carol and I and talk with us about that.

Taken from the video.

Spirit, Creative Life, and Sharing Your Gifts

Jim and Carol discuss their thoughts on how to integrate spirituality into every aspect of our lives.

“One of the most important things to get through any blockages to creativity is to really understand that the gift is not yours. Your job is to channel, to express and as you said, the glimmer comes to you and its your job to embellish and make it more beautiful and make it more real and to bring it into expression in the world through your mind and consciousness, which makes it unique.”

Link here for the text version of this conversation.

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This is for you if …..

Carol sent these words to me this morning.

OpenSourceSpirit is for you if:

If you are awakening intuition, sensing life beyond the material world,
looking for answers to the philosophical questions.

If you have had experience with some or one of the many spiritual paths.

If you are following your inner guidance, aware that there is more to life than meets the eye, ready to take an evolutionary leap.

If you wish to become immersed in the sea of being, in the life of love, or in the world beyond the seen.

If you are experimenting within the lab of your own nature.

If you wake with ideas in your head.

If you do yoga, sing, dance, are a scientist or gardener.

If you write, play or compose music, paint or sculpt.

If you are an artist, a scientist, a teacher, a philosopher, a meditator, an athlete, a parent, a son or daughter, a man, a woman, a seeker of truth.

If you have read Rumi, Gopi Krishna, the Bible, Buddhist scriptures, On the Road, the words of the poets, the saints, the business people, the lawgivers, the historians.

If you love life and its seen and unseen gifts.