Refine and Expand

Today’s territory is creative style.

Some people refine they do,
some people expand what they do.
There are no wrong answers.
What is your primary creative activity?

We all do a bit of both, granted. But some of us are natural deepeners, and some are natural explorers.

Each brings with it special benefits and costs.

Recognizing these, and using the right style in the situation you confront
- rather than defaulting to what you habitually do -
will bring you closer and more easily to your goals. You’ll get best effect from a style that fits the type of result you want.

A scientific illustrator refines and clarifies; a community arts festival expands and actualizes. The Japanese are famous for their refining of designs and techniques. Nicola Tesla was an explorer and expander first.

An example from closer to home: My old buddy Charlie Hunter, a painter from Vermont, just visited Santa Fe.

He has always loved trains, old buildings, independant music, and painting. Thus, he paints pictures of old train stations, sets up luxury train trips with musicians, makes collectable posters of the train trips with the musicians, writes a personable, witty and inviting newsletter about the trains and his art, takes trains to come out here and paint…There’s more, he is smart and good at getting things done, but that’s the big picture. Recent paintings of his are at charlie hunter, and his excellent national train trips at Flying Under Radar / Roots on the Rails

He is doing now what he loved as a kid, and continues to love.

When he arrived, he drove around looking at the old train depots out here. Although he hadn’t been here before, because of his national businesses and the artists that congregate here he arrived with invitations to openings and social events. In a week, he did paintings of several of the train stations, showed his work to galleries, and found three galleries interested in representing him. He chose one, and already has a show with them in the works for early May. He is coming back in two weeks to do more painting.

He is not pushy or arrogant. Rather, he has that true charm of someone who genuinely loves what he does, all of it, and would be doing it whatever reception his work gathered. And he appreciates others’ engagement in what they love.

Charlie has been refining these three things as long as I have known him: painting, trains, and music.
His ‘what-if’ questions are ones that take him deeper into these elements.
His activities integrate these three elements in different ways, changing but revolving around those same things.

My creative style is more exploratory and expansive, but not always as specific or deep. I love how our minds work, creativity, historical culture and byproducts, geology, the ocean, the weather, being on earth, peoples’ ideas, dogs, airplanes, teaching, writing, technology, science, digital phenomena, motion, invention, innovation, communication… Process of all kinds. Experience.

I want to experience everything, see what happens next, and then communicate it to the world.

So I make and do things because I want to see what happens if I do. I want to push past what I know and try something else. Most elements that present themselves to me trigger a ‘but what else can I do instead, or more, or further?’ response.

So many of the innovations I have brought to polymer techniques come from that. Constantly experiment. Looking back, though, there are times when I would have served myself better by pausing and refining for a few weeks. There are techniques that I developed and showed others that are now thought to have originated with other people who spent more time with them than I did.

And yes, there are techniques that I developed, expanded and refined. Like imitative techniques, hinging, mixing diverse media with polymer, and others. I am happy about the combination of exploration and deepening in those areas.

I expand first, then refine. My primary elements seem to be human experience, physical materials, and inner awareness.
My ‘what-if’ questions take me across elements, actions; combine, cross-reference, add, synergize, among these elements.
My activities are lateral investigations of experience. That’s true, but not specific.

Then I do my best to bring those experiences into a physical form – an object, a text, a seminar – that I can communicate with you.

Watching my friend Charlie’s easy, successful movement through his creative life, I recognize the real value in refining and deepening.
Having spent so much of my own creative history in expansion, I see value in that as well. Balance is the key. Love is the litmus test: do I love this? Have I loved this for a long time?

Can you say that about what you do? Refinement and expansion, based on longstanding love.

A dynamic pairing for creative style.

What about you?

Let me know what you notice about your own style and what balance most successfully brings your goals.

And just for grins, describe your unique nature in a noun and an adjective. (For instance, I am a communicative explorer) Ponder that one for a while. Let me know what you find out, and what you do with this persepective on yourself.

Until then,

exploring in art and life-

Tory