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.
To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.
I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.
The landscape thinks itself in me and I am its consciousness.
I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.
I love playing the Fillmore. I love the walk from the hotel and climbing up those old, iron stairs that lead to the stage. I imagine Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors and all those other great bands climbing those same stairs.
Drawing is . . . not an exercise of particular dexterity, but above all a means of expressing intimate feelings and moods.
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