Organic or Organized..What Works Best in Making Art?
I have been knocking this concept around the old noggin for quite sometime, just like the "Competition vs. Creativity" deal I blogged about earlier this Fall. It was really on my mind over the holidays, having just moved houses, not getting into my studio as much as I would like to and stuff like that.
So as my usual first step in contemplation of such matters, I turned to the dictionary to help me wrestle with this...
Even more enlightening than the actual definitions was the associations made with each word. For instance, with the first word below many ads for ADHD meds came up and with the second, "organized crime" was used as an example.
Hmmmm......
adjective
1.
functioning without adequate order, systemization, or planning;
uncoordinated: a woefully disorganized enterprise.
uncoordinated: a woefully disorganized enterprise.
2.
careless or undisciplined; sloppy: too disorganized a person to be an
agreeable roommate.
agreeable roommate.
Related forms
un·dis·or·gan·ized, adjective
NOTE: Not my personal living area. Computer file image, really.
Also computer file image, but in all honestly could be my desk any day of the week.
Except I take my coffee with lots of creamer...
or·gan·ized
[awr-guh-nahyzd] Show IPA
adjective
1. affiliated in an organization, especially a union: organized dockworkers.
Computer file image, definitely
2.
having a formal organization or structure, especially to coordinate or
carry out for widespread activities: organized medicine; organized crime.
carry out for widespread activities: organized medicine; organized crime.
Yes it is organized but will it help make art?
both courtesy dictionary.com
On one hand with disorganization, it is annoying to be forgetting, and events, especially if it lets someone down-constantly looking for things is no fun. Yet on the other (this is the creative in me talking), if things are too micro-planned out, then that creative spark and passion can get stifled or even snuffed out.
New Year + New Resolutions = EUREKA moment
While in my studio cleaning and rearranging this morning, it dawned on me. You see I went into work but nothing was happening creative-wise so I just intuitively starting cleaning and putting things in their "home". Whoa! I started organizing when I didn't want to.... I wanted things to just flow.
Why did I do that?
Because good art production needs an organized base.
Only then can the creative juices organically flow and not be halted by having to look for that misplaced brush or to clean up the paint accidently spilled because it was in the wrong place.
So disorganization and organic are NOT the same in my book. Organic good. Disorganization, bad. The fact that confusion is listed by dictionary.com as a related word does not help disorganized's case.
As I have heard before..plan excessively but then be in the moment. It is the planning but just as importantly the letting go of it that lets us truly be in the moment of creating...
Happy New Year! May 2014 be the perfect balance of planning and creating for you!
