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The programming list for CONvergence was posted recently and I am listed for three panels:
Thursday, 9:30 - 10:30 PM; Songwriting and Filking (with Mercedes Lackey)
Saturday, 11:00 - Noon; High Level Creativity
Saturday, 9:30 - 10:30 PM; Overuse of Iconic F/Sf Imagery
The one on my mind now is the panel on High Level Creativity. It's no coincidence that I have an interest in so many different areas of creative work. I recognize a common factor in all the arts, and it's that factor that is of interest to me regardless of what medium I happen to be working in.
We human beings have a tendency to get caught up in abstractions, to identify with our thoughts and verbalizations to such an extent that we can lose touch with the immediacy of our experiences as living beings. But that experience is vital to who and what we are. Among other effects, the arts all function to remind us, to reconnect us to the worlds of immediate experience, each in different ways.
The artist of whatever sort begins by involving his or her attention in the world of sensory experience, but invites the viewer/audience to participate and to share in the experience.
Obviously, the visual arts help us to see what's before our eyes: to notice our visual experience in new ways. Sculpture and fine craft work emphasize a tactile/textural element in this.
Music helps us to listen and hear, not just the abstract meaning we derive from the sounds that impact our ears, but to the sound itself, to its tones and rhythms, and to notice the visceral impact they carry.
Dance, martial arts and disciplines like yoga all focus our attention on the experience of moving and acting in the world.
Fiction and theater share in directing our attention in ways that combine many channels of experience. Theater is more direct and palpable; fiction truer to the experience of being a subjective participant in events.
All the arts serve to relate the abstract mind to the experiential mind, to relate the objective mind to the subjective experiences of both artist and audience.
Thursday, 9:30 - 10:30 PM; Songwriting and Filking (with Mercedes Lackey)
Saturday, 11:00 - Noon; High Level Creativity
Saturday, 9:30 - 10:30 PM; Overuse of Iconic F/Sf Imagery
The one on my mind now is the panel on High Level Creativity. It's no coincidence that I have an interest in so many different areas of creative work. I recognize a common factor in all the arts, and it's that factor that is of interest to me regardless of what medium I happen to be working in.
We human beings have a tendency to get caught up in abstractions, to identify with our thoughts and verbalizations to such an extent that we can lose touch with the immediacy of our experiences as living beings. But that experience is vital to who and what we are. Among other effects, the arts all function to remind us, to reconnect us to the worlds of immediate experience, each in different ways.
The artist of whatever sort begins by involving his or her attention in the world of sensory experience, but invites the viewer/audience to participate and to share in the experience.
Obviously, the visual arts help us to see what's before our eyes: to notice our visual experience in new ways. Sculpture and fine craft work emphasize a tactile/textural element in this.
Music helps us to listen and hear, not just the abstract meaning we derive from the sounds that impact our ears, but to the sound itself, to its tones and rhythms, and to notice the visceral impact they carry.
Dance, martial arts and disciplines like yoga all focus our attention on the experience of moving and acting in the world.
Fiction and theater share in directing our attention in ways that combine many channels of experience. Theater is more direct and palpable; fiction truer to the experience of being a subjective participant in events.
All the arts serve to relate the abstract mind to the experiential mind, to relate the objective mind to the subjective experiences of both artist and audience.