I am in the season of archiving/documenting past work and also creating new work. There’s a new energy/perspective there and it got me thinking about creative flow again.
I assume all of us know what creative flow is but incase you don’t know. Creative flow is the state of complete presence and immersion in a task, where distractions fade away, and the mind is fully open to creating. Emotions are normally positive and aligned with the task, leading to a sense of purposeful absorption. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of "Flow," emphasizes the importance of flow for both productivity and happiness in work.
In the last article I talked about when a project is “done” it transforms into a new project but it also gives energy to new projects. The creative act is cyclical and the more positive the last project is, the more energized the new project is.
The downside is that if you have too many unfinished projects, you can create a creative dam. I firmly believe that the only way to get past this is to wrap up (finish, document, organize, etc) as many previous jobs (projects, ideas) as you can to move on. Those old projects can also give/get new life to future ideas and some go to rest.
Some projects just fade away and that’s fine. What I am talking about is the ideas with life that stick or remain in your conscious. The creative act is to build/destroy, action/reaction, discover/build, and starting ideas in general. One way to tame this process is organization/archiving, which is it’s own journey.
This is one concept that I have been expanding on and will be documented in the rebuilding of cinaart.com.
Thanks and best to you and yours. Pass this on, comment away, etc.
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Links: Cina Associates, Cina Art, Public Type
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I love the idea of archiving to create more space and room for new work, makes me realise I really need to sort all my film negatives from the past 10 years 🙃