Midlife Creativity and Identity by Philip Miles

Author:Philip Miles [Miles, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Popular Culture, Sports & Recreation, Cultural & Social Aspects
ISBN: 9781787543355
Google: bMB7DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Published: 2018-11-30T04:14:29+00:00

6.1. Art Becomes Life

The process of artistic creativity hinges mainly on the sense that the artist is seeking a form of both expressionism and control that is entwined with a quest for vibrancy at the midlife stage. Thus, the humdrum of everyday life is resisted rather than harnessed, but in a way that considers the quest for stability in a changing world as being dull, routine and amounting to some kind of surrender. This is felt keenly in midlife, in-between the vitality of youth and the expected decelerating patterns of older age. So, what does this resistant, second-wind vitality look like? What rules does it have? How does an artist remain vibrant, original and inspired? The answer lies here in the sense of contribution to wider discourse, plaudits and the power of art to be personally and socially transformative.

The ‘artist ethnographer’ is evident in the collection of cuttings and photographs that Dominic placed back into the portfolio; but there is no anxiety of influence here because he considers all art original. Earlier, I cited the work of Hallam and Ingold (2007) on creativity, improvisation and the perception of originality, centring mainly on the notion that art is essentially discursive, organic, evolving and features, at its heart, the belief that art must be original is ripe for challenging. This can be achieved, they suggest, through understanding the inherent value of improvisation. This lends itself to that idea that all art is, in fact, innovative; to Dominic, leafing through his folder of cuttings, the genesis of (at least some) art emerges from the story that a picture is telling him and, whether subconscious or not, the folder facilitates ‘hours looking at these, [getting] so many ideas’ concluding that ‘plagiarism is pointless […], no-one needs a dud copy’. Is aura sensed via originality in him or transferred to him from others?

Dominic: I’ve done paintings of female figures where I’ve done it as […] constructed in thirty or forty lines, expressive lines; you can’t possibly control the process completely, it’s down to something […] like a millisecond will change the painting completely so whatever comes out, that is completely fresh to what you did in that moment.

He begins to sketch out a drawing of a young woman, using lines drawn in simple pencil, while suggesting it is about ‘value’ and not ‘emotion’ to him. There is a sense he wishes to convey that the ‘line’ takes on its own life, moving through time externally to the controlling human emotion that allows it to ‘live’. Lines, says Tim Ingold, incorporate ‘all […] aspects […] of human activity’ and exist as a form of silent language of movement and growth, occasionally linear but mainly organic and transient and communicative’ (Ingold, [2007] 2016: 1–3) and Edward Laning adds to this when he says of the manifest functions of the artist,

Ours is not a language of words, but one of lines, textures and tones. […] Ours is a language addressed to the eye as the poet’s is addressed to the ear.

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