Creative lesson number 3: Your artistic journey will create new paths
Anything creative I do has some type of lesson for me. In one way it is that “yeay, I actually made the effort, found the time and got off the couch to do this thing I managed to defeat procrastination and laziness once again!!”
And on the other side the thing that I created or rather the process that I had to go through also had some type of lesson for me.
This week’s challenge at 52Frames is ‘wabi sabi’ — it is a Japanese world view about the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It is sometimes described as the beauty of imperfection. It is similar to the “shabby chic” idea but I think that wabi sabi is a much wider concept.
You can read a bit more about wabi sabi and see some example photos at the Wabi Sabi challenge page.
This challenge is one of the all-time favourites in my photo group. I often wonder if it is because most of us do not seem to be spring chickens anymore? Is it the fact that we are not twenty years old that we can even SEE this type of beauty? As I think back to my younger self, I doubt that I would have thought that there is any beauty in a craggy old rock.
I think that I would have appreciated the rock as a rock. Something that is solid and give a firm contrast for people to step on and clamber over.
But now that I am older, I appreciate also the marks on the rock. Even though it is solid as a rock, the wind and the sun and the rain has still managed to carve bits away from it. And this has made the rock even MORE of a rock. Instead of diminishing it, time and the weather has carved the rock into something amazing.
When I was younger, I didn’t notice lichen or even knew what it is. And now I find it cool that this rock is hosting the lichen even though it probably didn’t have much say in the matter. And eventually the lichen will also contribute to the breakdown of the rock. Not very nice of them but I guess that is pretty standard behaviour of unwanted guests all over the world 😁. Or maybe the rock is happy for the company? It is not as though the rock OR the lichen have to be anywhere else to be…???
Did you know that lichen are actually made out of two organisms? Sometime ago an algae and a fungus got together and decided to hang out on a rock (or tree stump or fence post) and eventually become integrated with each other.
So what is my creative lesson this week? Because I wanted to take a wabi sabi photo of a rock, I climbed part of the Carmel mountains near my home in Zichron Yaakov.
Because I climbed the mountain, I met a bunch of cool rocks.
Because I met a bunch of cool rocks, I started to think about their essence.
Because I thought about the essence of rocks, I studied their texture closer and cemented my fascination with lichens.
Because I cemented my fascination with lichens, I learned about Beatrix Potter’s connection with them.
The rocks also inspired me to write a blog post about the tumuli field of Ramat haNadiv.
In conclusion:
Your creative endeavors will lead you down some very interesting and weird paths! Some will peter out into trails and eventually lead to dead-ends, other paths will be amazing and lift your soul and some paths will dark and scary.. both physically and mentally.
But…adventure is practically guaranteed with EVERY new creative journey!
Here is the link to the 52Frames Wabi Sabi album.
I belong to this photo group called 52Frames where we have to take a photo and upload it every week. (It is 100% free to join but take note that the deadlines are strict.) Plodding along every week getting my weekly photo has taught me a lot about creativity.
My other creative endeavors are writing words, writing code and messing around with drawings and fiber art.
Creative lesson of week 1: Don’t just focus on your flaws
My creative lesson of week 2: There is nothing new but that is okay
