Art and Creativity: Consistency and Monotony vs Experimentation and Adventure?

What is your approach to your creative endeavors, as an artist?

Personally, I chose to pick a style that I'm comfortable working with and that I enjoy, and then I have stuck to it and work on constantly perfecting my technique and my expression.

Over the longer term, people would definitely be able to look at something I've created and assert that I created it; there would be no doubt at all —the expression is consistent and pretty easy to identify, even against others who work in a similar style and medium.

That is not to say that the work is always the same or identical, it's more along the same lines as you can definitely identify one of Monet's or Van Gogh's paintings by their style. Monet didn't suddenly start doing cubistic expression or complete abstract painting.

But that doesn't work for all people. Some artists look at that and say "it must be incredibly boring and monotonous to stay with always doing things the same way."

For them, everything creative is an ongoing experiment. In a sense, their art expression is almost like performance art.

I knew a number of artists like this when we had our galleries, and you could never know what they were going to come up with next, and you certainly would never be able to determine that they had a style to identify them.

One particular artist we represented did small intricate paintings of figures when we first met him, then he went on to large scale iron sculpture, then he went on to music for a while, then he came back to visual arts, now painting colorful abstracts on huge canvases.

In the end, I suppose it all becomes a matter of what makes us comfortable. And perhaps what feels right, in terms of expression.

Perhaps we also need to ask the deeper question of why we create?

For some people, creative expression is simply a release of energy, and that energy is released into whatever is going on inside that person's head in the moment. "developing a style" and "working on technique" are irrelevant concepts. Whether that expression comes through setting a bale of hay on fire and taking a photo of it or from painting the Bible on a grain of rice the following day is all part of the whole.

For me, having a very consistent style of art is largely connected to art also being part of my mental health well-being program. Art is a meditation of sorts for me, and a place I like to return to inside my head on a daily basis. I find the idea of going in many different directions to be stressful, rather than calming.

But then I like to feel calm and happy when I am working on art. Many artists choose to express rage, frustration and suffering when they are working with art.

I suppose it's just a matter of priorities, and we just have to figure out whatever it is that works for our particular temperament!

Thanks for visiting, and feel free to leave a comment — engagement is always welcome!

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