November Issue 1999
Flow or Out
of My Mind: The Art of Creativity,
Karen Weihs's Book
by Lese Corrigan
It is refreshing to see someone not just exploring her creativity but being willing to tell others what her path and inspirations were. Local Charleston, SC, artist Karen Weihs has done this in her publication Out of My Mind: The Art of Creativity. With a pun on the phrase "out of my mind," Weihs discusses the creative self, as it differs from the thinking self, and its need for acknowledgement. This text is an overview of the author's life and experience of and search for what is known as the flow or the process of total involvement with life as an optimal experience. This term comes from Mihaly Csikszentmilhalyi, the research psychologist who has spent well over twenty five years researching what it is that makes a person happy or in the flow as is now said. The psychologist has found that there are activities conducive to flow which "produce[d] a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting the person into a new reality."
Weihs describes how she finds flow, what the results have been in her paintings and why
biscuits can transport her to the brink of creativity. She uses
the expression "out of my mind." Beside oneself might
be another expression for "out of my mind." Our everyday
selves work from a logical, analytical, critical, verbal, straight
line way of thinking - typical left brain activity - the kind
of activity that keeps us from missing deadlines, stop signs and
getting our change back. Our creative beings come from leaving
this mind and moving into a right brain mode - of expansion, creativity,
intuition, and visualization. Perhaps the stop light is green
but our gut says stop - just before a car runs the red light opposite
us.
So, in leaving this left brain or part of the mind, we go "out
of our mind." There is also the reference to not working
from nature or reality for drawing or painting but working from
the mind or the imagination. We process what we register from
the world, and we have a driving need to release this information
or get it out of our minds.
Weihs discusses the struggles encountered in finding one's creative
self and seeking the way to artistically release this information
from our minds. The difficulties of allowing this self to be expressed
in a realm of freedom from fear and criticism are constant battles
fought by creative beings who wish to push beyond the everyday
norms and break new ground. For many individuals this ground may
be new only to them but that is their valid experience and exploration
and each brings her or his own perspective. Daily life, family,
community demands, critics, disbelievers and envious beings all
seem to attempt to break the focus of the impassioned individual.
Related stories and examples of Weihs's associates who are impassionately
involved in their creative selves provides evidence of those who
have devoted themselves totally to their creative drive often
giving up "respectable," lucrative careers to do it.
In a decade of new age, self help, how tos,
Weihs has given us a local version of steps to developing creativity.
This seventy nine page outline for establishing a productive creative
schedule is a lesson in positive affirmations. It is often said
that the greatest thing a teacher, especially of an art form,
can do is to give permission. Weihs gives the reader permission
to explore, to fail, to succeed.
The interplay of book text and descriptive text following the
images of artwork are entwined with intimate details of her family
experience and personal development. Weihs includes details of
her artwork as watermarks enhancing the verbiage and as close
up examples of the results of her creative exploration.
Weihs has acquired the ability to stand back and see from whence she came. She can see the experiences and intuitive realizations as well as the failures that have formed her creative path and brought her to her current place. Now if she would just provide us all with homemade biscuits each week to remind us of our creative spirit and how exploration, discovery and work bring the reward of happiness, contentment would reign and the flow would be easily achieved.
Lese Corrigan is a native Charlestonian who is an artist, educator, writer and consultant in the visual arts' field.
Out of My Mind: The Art of Creativity was published by Five Corners Publications, LTD, Plymouth,
VT. The book is available for $19.95 at The Waterfront Gallery
and Unity Gallery in Charleston, at (www.amazon.com) or through
Karen Weihs's Studio, e-mail at (cweihs@dycon.com), on the web
at (http://www.weihs.com) and at 843-814-6627.
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
427, Bonneau, SC 29431
Telephone, Answering Machine and FAX: 843/825-3408
E-Mail: carolinart@aol.com
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