The Groove 140 - How The Universal Human Experience Can Expand Creativity
Welcome to the 140th issue of The Groove.
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HOW THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN EXPERIENCE CAN EXPAND CREATIVITY
No matter how far we are in technological advances, AI and all the dizzying hoopla surrounding our 21st century reality, the same themes of the universal human experience have endured for millennia. Our incessant quest in trying to understand love and heartbreak , loss and grief, hope and resilience, mortality and transience, and the exploration of personal identity and purpose are the most common of such complex pursuits and they touch everyone’s lives at some point or another.
For centuries, artists, philosophers, writers, and visionaries have been preoccupied with expressing the truth of their feelings and exploring the key events of human life on a deep, psychological level.
Born in 1901 in Borgonovo (Stampa), a little village in Italian-speaking Switzerland, Alberto Giacometti boldly embraced this quest. Discovering his own personal iconography and explorations of the human condition yielded spectacular results, as his work continues to enthrall collectors and the general public and consistently commands astronomical prices in the market.
Be Open to Finding Many Truths
Giacometti in his tiny Parisian studio in 1950.
“Say not, ’I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth," wrote Khalil Gibran in The Prophet.
Each one of us contains multitudes, and everyone is looking for their own truth. There’s not just one answer to meaning and life purpose. Once we can grasp the immensity of this concept, and accept that finding our raison d’être isn’t a cut-and-dry endeavor, we will have an easier time navigating the profound questions that preoccupy our existence.
“Art interests me greatly, but truth interests me infinitely more,” said Giacometti, who after years of experiments with small plaster, clay and bronze sculptures 2 to 4 inches in height (because that was the way he perceived a model in the distance), found his trademark style in his life-size, elongated, thin, rugged figures that seem to present people as they are seen while time passes. And time passes for all of us.
The seated portrait, the walking man, the standing female nude. Giacometti painted and sculptured almost nothing else during the last 30 years of his life and had a goal “not to represent people as you know them, but as you see them”. His family and friends spent long hours posing in his cold studio, while Giacometti painted or sculpted, with the feeling of never being able to reproduce what he saw.
The point is that there are no absolutes when we search for big answers, that the work itself is what gives meaning and purpose. We may not manage to reproduce our exact business vision into reality, but we may challenge ourselves to move the milepost again. Not in a way that brings discontent or unfulfillment, but instead keeps us engaged with life itself.
Develop a Sense of Closeness with Your Work
Giacometti’s The Chariot, 1950, photographed by Ernst Scheidegger in the Swiss countryside, 1963.
It’s rather difficult to validly explore themes of universal human experience without being profoundly aware of who you are (or at least making an attempt to go there). It’s also hard to succeed as an entrepreneur if you aren’t intimately familiar with all aspects of your business.
From December 1926, Giacometti settled up in a studio that was 280 square-feet, on 46 rue Hippolyte-Maindron in Montparnasse, Paris. In this space that had no heat and no running water, Giacometti produced most of his art. In this tiny place, he inserted his work and life into the pages of history books.
I think it’s not a coincidence that Giacometti kept the same studio for all his career even when he could afford a bigger and better one. He wanted to stay in close relationship with his work and strip it from any adornments or extras that weren’t aligned with his search. If he was trying to distill the essence of the human experience, then he needed to feel a closeness to his models and establish rapport and camaraderie with his sculptures.
This is part of the fascination that people have developed with his figures: an energy that is so pure and emotionally strong and that shows how much proximity existed between Giacometti and his work
Go Back to the Phase that Excites You
Genet – Giacometti exhibition at the Giacometti Institute. Paris, 2018
All these questions of meaning and existence that connect us in the most profound way can also cause crises in our careers when we seem trapped in a rut or feel like we’re walking around in circles trying to find answers that aren’t easy to come by. Especially when we have been doing something for a long time and it has become boring and uninspiring.
David Sylvester in his book Looking at Giacometti tells us that: “He would build up and then cut back to scratch, build again, working fast, demolishing completely, then go at it again. But there would be no enormous change in the image created each time. He wanted to be able to get the image right in an instant, in a flash. Most of the time he needed many such flashes before he would let the piece go. As an artist, he had a natural facility that he fought against and distrusted, seeing what he could do to make it harder for himself.”
For Giacometti the answer was to replicate the initial phase of a project. I think he was chasing the feeling of excitement and the intuitive hits that come with it and not necessarily the process of remaking a sculpture a hundred times.
The exploration of the universal human experience in any field serves as a powerful testament to our shared humanity. It increases our creativity when we decide to search for meaning. We find avenues to express and connect with the deepest aspects of our existence, transcending cultural and temporal boundaries.
When art and business converge in their understanding and portrayal of these topics, they offer us glimpses into our collective identity, reminding us of our interconnectedness and the timeless truths that bind us all.
JUMPSTART: IGNITE YOUR CREATIVITY FOR PROFIT, INNOVATION, AND REINVENTION
I’ve put together a free webinar for those of you who are not members of my online course and inner circle.
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If you’d like to watch it, please register here (it’s on auto-repeat every 15 minutes once you have registered).
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HOW CREATIVITY RULES THE WORLD
If you enjoy The Groove, you will love my book.
How Creativity Rules The World is filled with practical tools that will propel and guide you to get any project from an idea to a concrete reality.
Have you gotten yours yet?
It’s in three formats: hardcover, eBook and audiobook.
TEDX TALK
Have you already watched my TEDx Talk: “NFTs, Graffiti and Sedition: How Artists Invent The Future”?
I share three lessons I have learned from artists that always work for anyone in their careers. Watch it here.