I haven't posted in a while... my apologies. Back now!
When nothing new can be found, where is creativity? Are we just rehashing old ideas at this point? Is the only invention left time travel and portals? Has every story been told? Do we just need to get more complicated?
Are we just going to keep making our microchips into nanochips and our displays shinier?
What stories can we tell? Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, Macbeth, the Odyssey, they've been written. We see new stories come in, like Harry Potter, and The Fault in Our Stars, but though they're good, they're good partially because they refer to older lore... but let's face it, so do the others I mentioned. None of them just sprang up from a void. The Odyssey was passed down through oral tradition, and surely grew with each rendition, so that really it had several authors. Macbeth draws inspiration from real life events. The very title Pride and Prejudice is a borrowed phrase from another book. This idea we have that we need to create alone is an offshoot of overextending copyright law. No one ever creates great things alone. We always have help.
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A totally awesome library!
Here's where I found it. |
So basically, people, keep writing, and reading. And tell the idiots that complain that your work is similar to theirs that great minds must think alike.
And especially, don't be afraid to read books. And don't be afraid to think up derivatives of them, either. There is nothing wrong with being inspired by someone else. It's not stealing their idea. Really. More than one person can write a romance. Heck, more than one person can write a romance about a couple of transdimensional elves in puerto rico. Okay, maybe transdimensional elves is kind of stretching it. Just so long as it's not the same plot. Waitasec, please, someone tell me there's a romance about transdimensional elves in puerto rico somewhere out there. That would be awesome.
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Credit goes to Calvin and Hobbes' creator
Bill Watterson for this gem. |
As to art- is there another style to be discovered? In order to do something new, do we have to just get plain old ridiculous? I get 'question the current', but sometimes I wonder if modern artists are just incapable of finding anything sane that hasn't been done yet. We live in a world with a lot of other people, and more leisure time than we've ever had. We are increasingly aware that we aren't really that unique, and while that's sometimes reassuring, in a world that places such a premium on being special, it's also a bit intimidating. You don't make the history books by being like everyone else, especially in art, but no one's really that special any more. There's always someone better than you because there are billions upon billions of people on the planet, not to mention you aren't just competing with the living, you're also competing with the old masters! What could you possibly do that's better? No, you must do something that's different, new, to be special. But what is there to do? Again, the numbers are against you.
And yet, my favourite artists are often those who innovate not the what, but the how. Details are just as important as the concept, and though the modern art world has forgotten it, these people haven't. No, it's not commercial, low art to do something that's been done before your own way. It's not copying either. A lot of them come up with their own stories behind characters, get involved in rich fantasy worlds.
However, there is a danger to 'fanart'. At some point, instead of throwing massive creative juices into creating a really complicated place for yourself in someone else's pet universe, make your own characters! And appreciate other people who do, too. Take the time to get to know characters that don't belong to the Hunger Games or your favourite BBC series. Here's a few to get you started, including my very own
Samuel Jensen.
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MistyTang and Grimreapette
are a team on deviantart...
Grimmy writes and Misty draws!
These two are their characters,
Mercutio and Cian. Space elves. |
I intended to put up a link to Canadian-rainwater's page. However, she's kind of... gone dark. Due to an unspecified event, she's taking a break from the internet. As a massive fan of hers, I'm disappointed that I won't have any more hilarious stuff from her. But as a person, I know she needs her time and has every right to take it. So here's hoping she'll be back soon. She will be missed.
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| My sister's on Etsy! |
And here's just some stuff that's kind of new and refreshing in its own, quiet way.... just to drive home the point that sometimes originality is about sticking to an idea, not just doing the craziest thing you can think of.
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| This is an oil painting by Wayne Haag. We have a lot of new subject matter coming through, but there seems to be this weird belief, in the art world, that fantasy is wrong to depict unless you're either surrealist or painting from really old myths. New stories are kind of categorized like fanart. You don't see work like this in a major art gallery. But why? It's certainly original, and skilful. it just isn't what people think should go there. Not the right kind of rebellious. |
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I'll grant you this is borderline kitchy.
But why is it that we see this as meaningless,
but these shapeless masses are labelled 'elevated'? |
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Lassie is an artist I admire greatly,
and consistently creates truly fantastic work. |
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Leonid Afremov is, unlike many of the artists
I've mentioned here, not an amateur.
He could potentially make it into a gallery.
But he'll never make history. But you know what?
That's okay.
Because someone will love his paintings.
They will mean a lot to that person.
And if this artist is anything like me, that's
quite enough. |
