The Idea Makers

The eternal search for new ideas becomes harder every moment that civilization exists. This is literally true. Our ability to create completely spontaneous and new ideas is gradually getting harder and harder. 

As technology increases we are able to explore new avenues of ideas and creativity, but we will eventually reach a point somewhere in the future where everything that can be thought up, very well might be. 
I like to think that artists are some of the most important idea makers around. Unlike idea creators in the scientific sector, we have the ability to let our imaginations run wild for our creations. There are no limitations  to what we can achieve nor any social stigmas that may inhibit us (unless we allow them to). Our imaginations can fly.

Does it matter? We are just artists. We don't make great scientific breakthroughs or engineering marvels. We don't create cures for disease or solve economic woes. But we do serve an integral purpose in forcing the world to think in new ways. 

Do you really think that the scientist who eventually creates a cure for cancer is not influenced in some way to think creatively to find that cure? The greatest scientific mind of our times Albert Einstein was one of the creative geniuses of our time. If it wasn't for his ability to stop thinking like everyone else does and spur his creativity he never would have come up with the ideas that he did. 

Everyone is influenced by the great thinkers of our world and we as artists have an obligation to be on the leading edge of the creative revolution. 

As an artist and a creator I do not let anything stand in my way of trying to conceive of very different ideas. Sometimes they translate into my art, other times my art translates them into ideas. 

I have a lot of time to think while I work. My mind stays constantly active as I create and that activity yields up some rather odd notions. Buried in this blog you will find posts on immortality, the history of the earth before recorded time, the notion that far off in the future people are listening to us in the past and learning about us. I've even written posts on finding new ways to contact alien life in deep space and ways that alien life may find us. 

However bizarre my ideas are, I am constantly engaging my brain to look at things in totally new ways. And I am never put off with worry that people will think me a crackpot. I am and I own it. But because I've released the part of me that might not talk about something so that I am not labeled odd, its freed me to think about everything without stigma or taboo.

It is in this engagement of the mind that I would like to think allows me to create art that speaks to the viewer. I would like to think that I have an obligation to do so. Its is part of the responsibility of any creative, to pursue new ideas and find ways to say something in our creations that haven't yet been considered.

As I said at the beginning, it becomes harder and harder to do so as time moves forward. Perhaps I am wrong and as we grow as a species it will open new doors to newer ideas. I would hope it does because otherwise the world could become a pretty boring place. 

But face it, it was considered rocket science once to invent the wheel and use a rock to kill our food. Those are easy concepts for us now, but once they were staggering new ideas which someone came up with. Perhaps once long ago while ancient man was drawing antelopes on cave walls he suddenly realized that the rock he was using to draw with could also be used to kill the antelope and provide meat for his family.

We like to think of ourselves as simply painters. But we are so much more than that. We are the discoverers of our age and we are obligated to never forget it, even if you do nothing with the knowledge, never forget who you are. 

So the next time you are in the midst of that next painting and you suddenly have some absolutely off the wall idea come into your head, don't ignore it. It means your engaging with that higher level of consciousness that all artists have the ability to reach. Its not "New Age" its not religious epiphany. It is merely our brains doing what they've been trained to do. Its in our DNA and someday a scientific reason will be discovered for why our minds work the way they do. In fact, you just might be the one that comes up with the idea for it! 

Pay attention. You might just learn something about yourself.

Creatively,
Grey