I found the interview with Spoon interesting for a number of reasons. First, it is a wonderful example of what working creatively in a collaborative group can look like. I also really like the idea of imitating a pre existing style to enhance your own. Lastly, I appreciated the point of view of the band’s sound mixer, Dave Fridmann regarding post production in the creative process.

In any group, there are different roles members play. Some of these roles are more prominent, but each are important and vital to the group. While Britt Daniel and Jim Eno were the initial founders of Spoon, the band has grown to include a group of creative individuals who each bring ideas and talent to the table. Working together in a creative endeavor is much more difficult than a task like data collection or research. Creativity is a very individual thing. No two people will have the same idea about how to approach a project. While this can often cause conflict, when worked through productively, this conflict can produce work that is even better than the work of an individual.

Britt Daniel brings an interesting concept the the band. When approaching a new idea, he asks his band members to join him in trying out the material they have so far in the styles of other musicians. The band finds this very helpful in the creation of their own style. While emulating others, they find pieces of the style that work for them and incorporate it into Spoon’s style. I think this is a very interesting method of exploration and I look forward to trying it.

For the post production process of their music, the band places the responsibility with their sound mixer, Dave Fridmann. Fridmann speaks about his role in an interesting way. He says that it is his job to set out a banquet for the band, let them choose their favorites, and then toss out everything else. In order to get to this point, Fridmann will often take time working where he kicks the band out of the studio, This gives him the chance to work objectively, analyzing each piece of the project and determining the best course of action. He tries everything and then along with the band, decides what is best.

I learned a lot about Spoon’s approaches to the creative process and I think that I will benefit from implementing them in my own creative work.

Reflection: Amy Tan, Where Does Creativity Hide?

Amy Tan proposes that creativity is the process of making nothing from something. I think this is a very interesting concept. I’m curious what constitutes as “nothing.” Are our thoughts and ideas nothing? Are the materials we work with nothing until we create something out of them? What kind of energy does it take to make this transformation? Or is it a creation? We hardly ever think about these questions, but as artists, we create every day. The creative process is second nature to so many people, an indescribable process that makes something out of nothing. Tan says that this ability to create originates in both human nature and nurture.

Tan explores the possibility that some people are born with creative instincts. This means that it is possible to be born with no creative ability, which I find troubling. Tan also brings up the possibility that we are born with experiences from past lives and this is where we draw our inspiration. This could explain how we create something from nothing. Maybe the “nothing” is actually leftover from another life. I am a strong believer that the energy of the universe is constantly being reused. The energy that has been used to create before will be used again and again. Another point Tan brings up when discussing the nature of creative minds is their predisposition to neurological quirks. A tortured mind is a creative mind. This is sad, but true. So many great artists deal with mental illness, but they are able to turn their pain into art.

Another way the creative process can be promoted is through the experiences a person goes through as they develop. This can include childhood trauma like extreme expectations from parents or deaths in the family (in Tan’s case). A large outside factor that affects a person’s creative process is the resistance they get to their efforts.Tan lists several strong forces: the uncertainty principle, observer effect, and ambiguity. The uncertainty of success is something that plays a large role on the progress of an artist. It is hard to keep going when you don’t know if it is even worth it. When an artists acts as an observer, it is possible that they will become so invested in trying to find something, that they miss everything.

To be completely honest, reading this article gave me a sense of relief. It wasn’t until about a year ago that I thought that I could actually study art and it would be worth my time. I spent my childhood years loving art, but being conditioned to think it wasn’t going to be a productive or lucrative way to spend my life. From religious educator, to politician, to goat herder, I went through a lot of “what I want to be when I grow ups” before I realized how important it was to me that I was going to be creating for the rest of my life. I was determined to use art in my life and I think I’ve found a way to escape the starving artist trope. This article gave me so much hope. Pink describes an era where the creative mind flourishes, along with the technological. The Conceptual Age is an ideal time and I feel so lucky to live in a world that is catching up to what the masterminds have known all along. There’s a reason Renaissance men are masters of so many fields. The arts and the sciences are equally important and are even more powerful when working together.

The most interesting part of the article to me was the story of a Graphic Design firm staffed by people with a background in law who work to present information for court cases. How cool is that??!?!

Pink, Daniel H. “A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age”. 49-50. Print.

Growing up, when my dad would drop me off for school in the morning, he’d always tell me to have a good day and ask good questions. I’ve been asking questions for so long, it only seems natural to ask this one – What is design? After all, I’ve made a big commitment to design. The word is even in my major…

I really enjoyed Hara’s method of answering this question. I full heartedly believe that in order to understand the present and plan for the future, we must truly know the past. Hara began at the best place to begin a search for the truth – the beginning. The idea of “stick and vessel” as the first tools was very interesting to me. This categorization makes me think of active and passive elements of the world, both of which are very necessary. As Hara went on the describe the evolution of design as a field, I found it very interesting that design was so deeply rooted in answering questions. This way of thinking about design resonates with me. I consider design a very practical field. I practice problem solving in my methods of design and I’m glad to know that’s they way designers have been working since the beginning.

The Ulm School of Design categorized design into different fields. I really enjoyed Hara’s interpretation that design is about integrating all of these fields into one. Design is a very whole process that can easily be done in an empty matter. The Ulm School of Design’s categories – architecture, environment, product form, visual communication, information – and so many others work together to form the full field of design.

Hara, Kenya. “What Is Design?” Designing Design, Baden, Switzerland: Lars Muller, 2007. 410-37. Print.

As a artist, I’ve always been fascinated by the play between black and white. I’ve found that working inversely, with white medium on a black surface is a challenging and enriching practice. I’ve coined the term “drawing the light” for this unique method of mark making. Often in art, we focus on finding the shadows in a subject and using them to form the shape of our work. When creating with white, you get the opportunity to focus on the light in the image.

The most striking part of the passage for me was the description of black and white and how they relate to society. According to Flusser, black is the complete absence of light and white is the complete presence. I think it’s very interesting that black and white are two ends of the spectrum of light. Flusser equates this theory to the white and black of religious and political ideologies. These ideologies state that actions are either black or white – entirely bad or entirely good. However, this isn’t how actions work. There is a wide spectrum of morals that aren’t accounted for in black and white. The true actions are different from the expectations of the ideology, but the ideology works as a representation of the actions. In the passage, Flusser describes a similar relationship between photos and the concepts they record. Photographs take concepts and code them into a representation that is remarkably similar to the concept, but is still not the actual concept. However, as viewers, we accept the representation as truth and often do not work to decode the photograph to find the differences between the concept and the representation.