Each person has their own unique creative intelligence. When we listen to it and create in service of it, and when we have something to say worth saying the end result may be Art. No guarantees. There are many variables involved that effect how successfully our vision gets translated into reality and takes concrete form.
Some of those things(IMHO) are:
Passion and dedication of the artist to mastering their materials or/or their craft, which in turn effects>
Ability to project through your art the message you want to send or if not the message you intended to send, another message better than or equal to your intentional one,.which in turn effects>
The clarity, power and/or beauty of the response created within the viewer.
I really think that the heart of it all is the creative intelligence at work.
It is not book smart intelligence. It is a special brand of intelligence.
I believe that everyone has it, but not everyone is in touch with it, and not everyone has developed it.
There are people to whom the craft of expression comes easier.
There are people to whom the ideas and conceptions come easier.
The stronger your passion and need to create the more you will be motivated to hone your skills and perfect them. The more you will be willing to suffer in the service of your vision.
It takes courage also, and willingness to fail.
Sometimes after many years of stumbling a person happens upon what is their true metier. Other times an artist is immediately drawn to something not even understanding why and then excels at it. Sometimes, I think, someone who has it in them to be a true artist never seems to find their niche. They give up too soon, or they know what they want but are afraid to try it and fail.
I think it’s important to creativity in art to develop your own style and not copy someone else’s. Learning from others is great, and to be admired. If you are too proud to learn from the greats you are losing out on a great tool and much inspiration. It may take time to evolve a unique style of your own. Eventually, it comes from within you and you find the means to express it ever more clearly the more skills you acquire.
There’s nothing new under the sun, they say.
One of my favorite aphorisms. I work in fashion and fashion relies on a constant reenergizing force which is called newness, trends, “the latest thing”. But if you know fashion history you can see the roots of everything. The newness comes from a new twist. A change in focus from which area of the body is being accentuated, new materials and technologies, new combinations of elements, and new ways of expressing whatever the current culture is shifting to. There is a vocabulary and iconography that has emotional resonance with people. A lot of people don’t “get” fashion. Or they think it’s shallow and they are “above” it. Or they have a love/hate relationship with it. The more you understand about fashion and the more you are familiar with fashion history, the better you can appreciate what goes into it.
Still, fashion rarely rises above the level of applied art. I love it because it is endlessly creative and it relates to the human body and personal expression in such an every day, yet impossible to ignore way.
I really wanted to get at the kernel or what I think makes art creative. Creative at its basic meaning is simply, as many people said, bringing something into existence which wasn’t there before. But I think about creativity on different levels. And the best creativity is that which perfectly expresses something and embodies something that is profound. It communicates. It moves people. It changes people. That is the art with a capitol A. There is much commercial art and applied art that rises to this level. There is much that does not. It’s all good! Even imperfect attempts at art have their own kind of special beauty. I am not an art snob at all.
All in all, I am not sure if I answered your question or not. I got creative with it, lol.
