Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them. What we're talking about here is metaphor. Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art, if it is not art itself. Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we are experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It's not only how we express what we remember , it's how we interpret it - for ourselves and others.
Interpretation
Creativity involves connecting past experiences and emotions through metaphor to create art.
In this quote, Twyla Tharp emphasizes the role of metaphor as a fundamental element in creativity and art. She suggests that creativity is not just about original ideas but rather about how we link our existing memories, feelings, and experiences to create something new. Metaphor acts as a bridge between our past and present, enhancing our understanding and expression of these connections in artistic forms.
In practice
During a workshop on artistic expression, I shared this quote to inspire participants about the importance of metaphor in creativity.
Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.
I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft.
Beauty is perfect in its imperfections, so you just have to go with the imperfections.
I've returned to being an amateur without any ties or strings attached, which gives me a freedom I never had before.
In my writing, I want to be laid bare as a human being.
Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets - as vast and indestructible as nature itself.
The only way to eliminate any government choice on what art is worthwhile, what art isn't worthwhile, is to get the government totally out of the business of funding.
The best music, you can seek some shelter in it momentarily, but it's essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.
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