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Creativity and VSA arts of New Mexico By
Jennifer Noyer, Writer, Choreographer, and Dance Critic What is creativity?
Who has it, and how does it function in our brains and in our
culture? These are the fun
questions that can fill pleasant hours of discussion and rumination, but
usually do not result in clear definite answers.
Scientific research in the fields of physics, psychology, and the
physiology of brain functions has brought new clarity to these
discussions, inviting multiple disciplines to merge their ideas and
understandings of the nature of human creativity.
A
visit to the new VSA arts Center of New Mexico and a morning tour of the
Center with VSA arts of New Mexico Executive Director Beth Rudolph,
revealed the extensive creativity of people with disabilities being
expressed and documented there. Every
participant has a current art portfolio and an historic portfolio, filed
and kept up to date as months and even years go by. “We have the
opportunity to follow through to see the development of artists coming
out of this program.”
The
VSA building is at 4th Street and Griegos, a former department store and
bingo parlor, newly refurbished and a vibrant part of the plan to
revitalize the Camino Real in a modern reincarnation. The building
houses an art gallery, recycling center for art materials, framing and
matting rooms, a fabric and textile area, weaving room, puppet making
studio, a print making space, computer room, a dance studio, creative
writing studio, and plans for a black box theatre.
New and ongoing arts education programs are offered by a team of
highly skilled, multidisciplinary artists and support staff.
Apprentice artists are mentored in a range of arts-based studies.
Instructors include Jill Pribyl, who works with the long-established
Buen Viaje Dancers, and Cathy James and Anna Zollinger, who are
developing programs for creative writing, sensory integration, play
development and script writing with video equipment as an extremely
useful tool. Rudolph
said she is hoping to see music programs expanded that now help students
create sound landscapes. The
organization is looking for community volunteers to help develop
additional instrumental programs. VSA received a grant to purchase Orff
instruments and is investigating the development of additional arts
education classes and workshops for the North Valley community. VSA’s
research on the creative process has established five stages of creative
growth, with students going from one plateau to the next within their
own developmental time frame. In
the first stage the student experiences an awareness of what is in the
immediate environment, while the second stage reveals an ability to
attend and focus on what is experienced.
The next stage is one of imitation in which the student is eager
to copy what is seen or heard. This leads to an attempt to create
something that is new to the creator, initiating an individual
expression. Finally, the reflective stage allows the student to
evaluate, or assess, what has been accomplished, in other words,
critical skills. “We
are discovering new insights into the nature of creativity right here
that are feeding the research all over the country,” Rudolph
explained. A study was
begun in the early 1990s at VSA called Arts Impact that was funded by
the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Mexico State Department
of Education. The focus of
the study was to determine the effects of structured arts education
activities on problem solving ability and creative growth.
At the end of the period of observation, during which the
students participated in these structured arts activities, a
standardized test was given to gauge any change in level of performance.
The students revealed statistically significant improvement in
problem solving skills as compared to a control group.
“We
work with what is there, discovering individual gifts and qualities,”
Rudolph added. But what
really happens when someone first breaks through in a creative moment of
insight---that sought after teachable moment when instructors can help
students soar onto a new plateau? Research
on the nature of creativity by Dr. Ruth Richards of Saybrook Graduate
School, University of California in San Francisco, who also lectures at
Harvard Medical School, reveals an intriguing overview of discoveries in
the fields of advanced mathematics and physics that interconnect with
psychology, philosophy and the arts. Richards,
who has studied creativity for many years, divides the subject into two
aspects: everyday
creativity and eminent creativity.
She has found that creativity, not just limited to the arts, is
an adaptive force; that without it we could probably not survive.
It includes the ability to make mental connections, with unique
originality, and encompasses “people who excel in home landscaping,
school teaching, repairing cars, raising children, or even design
dangerous wartime resistance activities.”
She calls creativity a style of thinking, a way of reacting.
She postulates that people with disabilities may derive a
creative push from the fact that they are so in touch with immediacy,
being in the moment, that they may be more open to a fresh and original
vision.
Eminent
creativity, such as that experienced and produced by such giants as
Albert Einstein, great composers, choreographers, architects and other
visual artists does not appear to be that different, in that it involves
moments of insight and originality.
A flash of inspiration suddenly connects images and ideas to form
a kind of synthesis from a soup of chaotic impulses, colors, shapes,
memories etc. that swarm about inside our brains and outside to be
perceived by the brain.
Enter
Chaos Theory, studying the functioning of non-linear, unpredictable
chaotic systems in nature. In
fact, most of nature is non-linear (such as tornadoes, clouds etc.).
The creative act becomes a bringing of temporary order out of a
chaotic system. The order
then dissolves rapidly into new dynamic chaos from which ever-evolving
new creations of thought are built upon the old with fresh insights. In
nature the shift can also go in reverse where a small event, such as the
beating of a butterfly’s wings can cause a huge result, such as a
tornado on the opposite side of the world.
Chaos theory opens a visionary understanding of the connectedness
of all dynamic functions in the world.
Dr.
Ary Goldberger, of Harvard Medical School in Boston writes that,
“Almost all of classical mathematical physics, and most every
scientific field evolved from the assumption that the real world can be
modeled using linear equations. But
linear equations and models are, at most, a first and very rough
approximation of natural systems. Nonlinear
systems don’t behave according to classical rules. They do wild and
weird things – they are the real world.”
Here
is where the ideas become really intriguing, although difficult to
grasp; somewhat like catching fish in a flow of water with one’s own
bare hands. When a system
begins to veer out of balance, it is pulled in a new direction by what
is termed a “strange attractor,” a force that pulls in an entirely
new direction. When you focus on a puzzle, your focus pulls all the
necessary information together to find a solution. Concentrated focus
becomes the “strange attractor.” A desire to venture into the unknown, off the beaten
path, is the creative urge.
Each
of the five plateaus of developing creation that are observed in the art
programs of VSA can be seen as flashes of insight stimulated by strange
attractors evolving in the studio environment.
In her 1999 article, “The Subtle Attraction: Beauty as a Force in Awareness, Creativity, and Survival,”
Dr. Richards finds that an awareness of beauty in an environment focuses
the brain for a creative moment. The
brain is attracted by something perceived as beauty, and is redirected
towards a new creative insight.
Mathematicians
plot lines and three-dimensional shapes from the equations that express
the non-linear systems in nature. These
“fractal images” hide within the landscapes of our world, and within
the creations of visual artists, attracting and motivating the
developing human brain. A
rich, artistically enhanced educational environment such as the one in
the VSA studios, or in the best of public and private schools, actually
can be seen to mold the mind and steer it toward creative insights. (Special thanks to Jill Pribyl and the Buen Viaje Dancers for providing the inspiration for this article and Dr. Elias Katz for offering guidance on creativity research.) VSA
Does Windows by
Kim Corwin September
8, 2001 Reflections
on the 2001 Arts for Life Learning Institute I
was sitting and heard someone say, "I don't do windows."
(The statement not related to VSA.)
But it made me think. A
metaphorical image came to mind. It
was night. I saw each of our communities as a huge warehouse or gallery.
There were thousands of windows in this gallery and some of those
windows were cracked. Some
of the windows had pieces missing.
While others were dirty, warped, and almost opaque.
I saw VSA consisting of people willing to do windows.
Each broken window became a person with a disability and VSA
people were going through this gallery cleaning all the windows.
VSA was not trying to fix or repair the windows.
Their purpose was to allow the windows to let the light shine
through. Now, when the
windows had all been taken care of and the sun came up the gallery was
illuminated with a light that took my breath away.
We---you---me---VSA were bathed in colors and patterns beyond
belief. Art is light.
We are all windows of glass, but the artist with a disability
needs some willing to do windows. I have to tell you that the windows with missing pieces let
the most light through. VSA
does windows.
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