Creative by Coincidence

You are often creative for a reason

Photo by Khara Woods on Unsplash

I guess most of us like to believe that we can be spontaneously creative — that whatever we suddenly come up with appeared out of nowhere, or at least out of our minds; nowhere else.

Think about those witty or wise comments that you and others can add to a funny conversation with friends, especially when you have had a drink or two and are overall happy and in a social mood — you want to give something, and somehow your brain delivers it, non-stop.

But are you sure that you come up with everything yourself? I mean, in a conversation, you react on what the others say, and you have heard various things said during the day until then, and the days before — actually, all your life has been full of input that now makes it feel natural for you to “creatively” say what you say, seemingly out of the blue.

When the French impressionists took the painting world by storm in the 19th century, they didn’t just start doing it - didn’t just start painting in a new way out of the blue. There was a very specific reason for them to do it: the tube!

Before the paint tube was invented, it was a complicated business to be an oil painter: you’d have to mix the paint yourself, on the spot when and where needed. That could best be done in a studio, and it could take some time, so most paintings were still — not only because that is the nature of a painting, as compared to a movie, but also because everything in it had to be standing or sitting still for a lengthy period while you were mixing the paint and adding it to the canvas.

But the tube made it possible to bring everything with you anywhere. In the nature, for instance, panting a field or some playing children live. Not by your memory, as it had been customary, or through models standing still for days. These children didn’t need to stay in the same place for days, they could just play, and you would quickly sketch a painting that you could then continue improving a bit, even when the children had run away again.

The impressionists got the possibility to paint their immediate impressions because of a technological invention. Then again, the painting tube was invented as a result of a wish by painters — expressed or unknowingly, they wanted the act of painting to become easier.

Much later, about 10–20 years ago from now, I think, there was a worldwide wave of acrylic painting popping up – a trend, possibly made to happen by some technological creations, even though I wouldn’t know what that would be. Perhaps better and cheaper acrylic paint?

Whatever made it happen, inspired very many people to get into acrylic painting as a hobby. Before long, all supermarkets and other shops were selling a selection of cheap paint and canvases, along with brushes and other stuff needed.

It is obvious, that many people began painting because others were doing it. It was a trend, a fashion, and it got caught by influencers who were good at re-introducing the old idea of naïve art and claim that this was what unskilled amateur art painters were doing when smashing paint on a canvas.

Of course, many of these amateurs were indeed very good, while others really didn’t have a clue of what they were doing or why. They didn’t follow any teaching, didn’t study techniques, other than the “weekly painting” course on an online platform for only $50 a month.

I actually appreciate this trend, but a lot of what was happening here definitely wasn’t spontaneous creativity, it was wishful attempts to follow a dream of freedom of expression, of being someone else, and of changing an imprisoning technocratic mindset into a liberated artistic one.

Creative came out of this, mostly based on the availability of the needed tools and the inspiration from friends and influencers.

At around the same time, some online platforms for amateur music creators appeared. Suddenly, it was possible to share music that you had created, and get likes and comments — in some cases leading to fame.

This went along with software for the computer that could help compose and construct music, and even play it to a file; ready, recorded music that could be distributed immediately.

Mixing and sampling was part of this, and the synthesized music became rather popular among a group of young people who began seeing themselves as musicians.

Again, this all was inspired by the availability of the needed technology and the possibility to distribute the music.

Creativity had the usual reasons, also here.

Today, we have a fashion for writing. Platforms like Substack and medium has pushed on that trend, and social media have been a needed training platform for people to become used to communicating with the world.

When we write on any online platform, we walk in the footsteps of others who did so during the last several years. We hear from influencers how we can earn billions within weeks, if we just buy their courses, and in general, we get tons of inspiration to get us started.

Yes, I personally still want to believe that at least part of my creativity comes from an undefined “me”, somewhere inside my brain — or being part of a universal existence that is me, just acting through this earthly body, with fingers that allow me to express these creative thoughts.

Okay, perhaps not exactly that, but I want to believe that I am not just a mechanical copycat.

Whatever the value of creativity can be said to be, this is part of it — our personal growth and understanding that we are unique, even when much of our inspiration can be tracked to societal events, technological inventions, and all that we have heard but do not remember the source of.

In fact, all that mixed together society and sensory input from all of our lives — that is us. That is what we can express.

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This music appeared in the “Roon Radio” — a concept I will get into in an article sooner or later, but basically, it is music picked by a program on my computer, called Roon.

Roon can play the music I have (ripped CDs), but when my playlist runs out, it offers to continue playing something similar. In this case, I had been listening to everything I had by Hauschka, a German composer with a hung for prepared pianos, and Roon came up with this music to follow up.

How creative of it!

It fits my liking, as it is new compositional music for piano, and it is in the line of Ravel and Debussy, which I like. An excellent pick, coming up while I was myself being creative, thinking about this article.