Year in 38 Works of Art. Annotated.

This post is inspired by a reflective practice of a dear colleague and friend, Pablo Tinio. Unlike his solo camping in the woods around the holidays, my strategies are travel and art. This is not quite the place to share my pictures from a trip to Mexico (pina colada from a pineapple! lots and lots of Mayan ruins!). A year in review through art representative of the exhibits and events I had a chance to see this past year is meditative and brings up creativity-related thoughts and ideas.

Because it turns out that this included 38 art experiences, I broke it into two parts. This is part 2 (the first part is here, in case you want to revisit it).

I have taken all the pictures. July through December, here it goes.

Rouen, France. Cathedral that Monet painted many times in different light of day. This picture looks just like the sunset version. Life inspiring art. Art inspiring life. Unadulterated joy.

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France. Creativity is not just the Monets of this world. There are other creative impressionists (Alfred Sisley here) and other cathedrals. If we only think of what scientists call Big-C creativity, it can quickly become discouraging, even for us who are professionally creative.

Cologne, Germany. Museum Ludwig. Rouen cathedral yet another way. Creativity goes in many directions. And honoring those before us does not diminish it. Quite to the contrary, it can inspire and delight.

Cologne, Germany. Cathedral stained glass window by Gerhard Richter. This window is less than 20 years old (dates to 2007). As soon as I saw it, I thought that it represented all the colors of the traditional windows throughout the cathedral mixed into a kaleidoscopic abstraction. And that is exactly the story the guide told. Art is a mirror to the world and we can peek into it. Did you know that the word empathy was originally coined to describe the experience of art? Feeling into art, to be precise.

Muenster, Germany. After the War, many churches in Germany were left without their stained glass windows and in the reconstruction faced a dilemma whether to try to recreate what was lost or do something different and more in the spirit of the present. Many places went with the latter and leaned into abstract expressionism. A creativity choice. One showing art as a living thing.

Christiania, Copenhagen, Denmark. Having close to absolute freedom can (and will?) devolve a society or a social experiment. Christiania was born of a desire for freedom, but ended up needing some guardrails when hard drugs became a serious problem. Despite full freedom of action seeming attractive and our belief that it facilitates creativity (about 70% of people across cultures seem to think that!), some constraints help creativity. In one study, when people were asked to write creative greeting card messages for different occasions (e.g., birthday, thanks, well wishes), they were more creative when constrained by having to use a specific unusual word, such as ‘frog’ or ‘vest’. This constraint nudged them away from the common themes for these messages and directed them to more original mental spaces.

Copenhagen. Design Museum Denmark. When asked how he would describe the next decade, the designer who created the first radio with no buttons answered “systematic creativity.” Very appropriate for our present moment. Systematic creativity implies our agency, purposeful and reliable creativity, and suggests the importance of social and organizational systems to support it.

Royal Copenhagen Porcelain. We tend to think of globalization as a phenomenon of our time. But Europe was fascinated by the white and blue Chinese porcelain since the 17th century. Portuguese, Dutch, and Danish (here) porcelain came as a response to the demand for Chinese products. From imitation to creativity of their own styles. Research shows that copying unfamiliar art increases creativity on subsequent drawing. And European porcelain makers grew their own creative practices.

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA. Making History: 200 Years of American Art from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Georgia O’Keeffe, the amazing Georgia O’Keeffe. She made me want to see her world. I cannot paint myself, but love exploring macro photography. She did not identify as an abstract painter, but one who paints what she sees. Her creativity was in looking and seeing what others did not. That took courage. Which reminds me of my favorite quote by her, “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from a single thing that I wanted to do.” Indeed, you do not have to be comfortable or assured to create. But you have to do it.

New Hampshire Art Association. Unfortunately, I have not taken a note of the artist and the reverse search did not help. But it reminded me of the Moomins, which is always heartwarming. Creativity that makes the world a better and a gentler place. Transformative creativity.

New York, Times Square subway station. Nick Cave, "Each One, Every One, Equal All" I was exhausted, going through a crowded subway stop looking down. And then, as I climbed the stairs… This wonder. Art can open the mind and eyes and hearts. I paused. Really, stopped in my tracks. In pure delight. And then other people stopped. Not many, but some. To see what I was looking at smiling. They saw it too. Making the day brighter.

New York. Fashion Institute of Technology Museum, Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis. People are often motivated to do creative work to help them cope with something challenging or to help others. And these motives can overlap. In expressing anger, anxiety, and vulnerability in the (spiky) dress, Viktor and Rolf were conveying shared feelings.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ENCODED: Change the Story, Change the Future. I know the picture is poor quality (it is a frame from a video), but I hope you take a note anyway and check out the link. This might have been my favorite art event of the year. Native American artists created augmented reality pieces superimposed on iconic works of American art. I personally don’t think that wrongs can be made right (almost ever) and the American original sin cannot be righted. But we need to talk about it, and we need creativity to make people pay attention. Different pieces touched me in different ways, but this one pictured made me want to scream in agreement. No! Those land acknowledgements on institutional websites do not make a difference, they just make us feel like we are doing something (I speak here as a member of a social category that benefitted from the atrocities committed). Resources! Thank you to amelia winger-bearskin for letting us know about this event and contributing to it.

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. Salvador Dalí, Morphological Echo. Experientially, creative ideas sometimes come from a place of mystery. Rather surreal. But what is subjectively akin to magic actually draws on accumulated knowledge and experience. Broader knowledge and range of experience, greater chance we can combine them in original ways to come up with creative ideas.

Pucker Gallery, Boston, MA. Friedensreich Regentag Hundertwasser, I Fiori Segreti Del Re. How do we see the world? Can we bend what we see? Can we shape it? Creatively?

Denver Museum of Art, Denver, CO. The Honest Eye: Camille Pissarro’s Impressionism. Paul Cézanne called Pissarro the first impressionist. (And Pablo Picasso called Cézanne the "father of us all", so he should know). Pissarro was the only artist who exhibited at all eight impressionist exhibitions. This is one kind of creativity, staying and experimenting within the limits of a style. Our culture values more radical forms of creativity, but the importance of steady experimentation becomes more obvious when we think of a scientist who doggedly stays with a particular topic of research and makes consistent progress that in time creates a great difference.

Portsmouth, NH Holiday Arts Tour. Artist, Lisa Grey. My first impression of this piece was centering in a world that is off center. In a conversation with the artist I learned that it was a collaboration with a colleague half a continent away. They mailed their work back and forth, each adding to it in multiple layers, until they decided the work was complete. Much of creativity is collaborative. And all of it is social, even if we work alone. Ideas do not come out of a vacuum.

Artist, Allen Norelli. A brunch with friends can become an art event when one has a chance to check out work in progress and notice this one tucked in the basement. Worm hole. [According to Star Trek: ] They are unstable, but if you are at the right place at the right time, you can get very far very fast. This is a bit like luck. If you notice the opportunities and approach them prepared, the unexpected and the creative can come to be.

Cancun, Mexico. Colleagues of mine at the University of Pennsylvania conducted a study of how people experience murals in different neighborhoods in Philadelphia. Murals sparked emotional responses, but also made the neighborhood seem more inviting, quieter, and cleaner. Art can help build community.

Wishing you all a year full of art. Or whatever fills your cup.

More about the social side of creativity in Chapters 9 and 10 of The Creativity Choice.