It’s a simple enough question, but for some, it’s often not an easy answer. To bestow the distinction of artist upon oneself can feel presumptuous and perhaps even inauthentic. What is it in me or my work that one may find synonymous with artist, the same word used to describe cultural icons? Art sometimes carries an almost unattainable connotation that appears a certain way or embodies a deeper meaning or significance to the world.

 

Exploring the root of one’s inner artistry is a logical starting place for exploring possible responses to these questions. Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way, a widely regarded textbook for discovering the inner artist in all of us, outlines two actions one must take to nurture their creative mind.

 

The first assignment, dubbed Morning Pages, is simple: The ask is to write three pages every morning. It’s set up to fit whatever you – the person holding the text – need from the exercise. The Artists Way provides a loose set of guidelines directing what you should write about, but the exercise does not discriminate by background or by form, whether poetry, the beginning of a longer story, or just a stream of conscious thoughts. Cameron attempts to dismiss any apprehension so to welcome as many people as possible into the practice, “there is no wrong way to do morning pages.” There are countless ways to approach this writing. One way Cameron discusses morning pages is to treat it as a starting point for the rest of the day, acting as a sort of brain dump and disposing the mind of any thoughts taking up space and putting them out onto paper. She further invites readers to let their guard down. After all, it’s an exercise for you, for whatever outcome you wish, and for your artistic self. There are no other expectations to fulfill.

 

This is the very essence of art, the freedom to express. Humans are complex beings with complex thought structures. Having an outlet for creative expression is key to nurturing our inner artist. Morning pages therein create space to relieve those inherent humanistic burdens and enable expression without prejudice, without editing, and without judgment. Writing about ourselves can be easy, for it’s often what we know best. In the same way memoirs strike the chords of honesty and humility, so too do each of our individual lives. These authors have simply taken on the work; bringing their stories to life and tying them all together into a cohesive book.

 

How we nurture our inner artist can take other forms outside of writing, whether visual art like painting or non-visual art like music, but there may not be another form more democratizing in practice. It only requires pen and paper, but it can yield limitless possibilities.

 

The second tool Cameron cites in The Artist Way is the Artist Date, which she describes as more of a diversion from the equilibrium of everyday life. At least once a week for about two hours, Cameron suggests a play date for your inner artist to bear witness to something new and different. It’s the Yin to Morning Pages’ Yang with the Artist Date being more input-driven. This time block is an invitation to take in the world for “insight, inspiration, and guidance.” Cameron further describes this act akin to filling (and refiling) the well that sparks creative inspiration.

 

Thinking about your favorite song may evoke visceral imagery of the memories associated with it, perhaps representative of a particular phase in life, or a single moment. It has the power to transport the listener back to the feeling of a cool fall night atop an NYC rooftop, or rowdy karaoke night at the local dive. Hearing the song again later on may prompt a “flip that record back and start it over again” kind of response.

 

For all those memories, there’s also a first listen. Hearing a song for the first time is an experience in itself, acting as a catalyst for some change within ourselves. Like anything new we do or experience, learning takes time. It can also be quite difficult. It’s common for people to struggle when listening to a new song for the first time, and often need to play it over and over to both appreciate and become more comfortable with its unique arrangement. In the same way people struggle to make sense of a new song, so too do our brains, which experience a sort of fury in trying to map these new harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic patterns onto our existing neural networks. Take for instance Bob Dylan’s iconic performance at Newport Folk Festival more than 50 years ago. On one afternoon at Fort Adams State Park, Bob Dylan went electric, substituting his traditional acoustic set for an electric one for the first time. It was the first time a folk artist decided to plug in, thereby resisting any previously set expectations, and instead embracing a new form of expression. While this performance today was regarded as monumental, the moment caused somewhat of an uproar within the larger music community, especially those who attended in person. The New York Times reported, “some people were dancing, some were crying, many were dismayed and angry, many were cheering, many were overwhelmed by the ferocious shock of the music or astounded by the negative reactions.”

 

This experience of listening to something new changes our brain’s neuroplasticity, or the ability of the brain to adapt. More specifically, it affects a set of nerves in the auditory cortex, which help organize new patterns of sounds. This neural network maps out song structures to both learn and rehearse how to react to this new stimulus, whether it’s the chorus or a moment in the song that make us want to move. It can be a frustrating process, not unlike any sort of learning curve, but this is how a song’s trajectory grows on us over time. Many theories exist surrounding Dylan’s Newport performance that attempt to analyze the crowd’s reaction, such as how the crowd reacted (accounts recall both boos and cheers) and why they reacted in such a way. Still, the legend of that day lives on. It acts as a reminder that our brains often need a minute to orient itself to new stimuli and form a more modulated dopamine response based on taste.

 

All of this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t listen to new music – it’s actually good for us. Regular exposure to the avant-garde promotes an understanding of someone else’s world, or at least the way he or she personally sees it. Art takes time, both to create and to try extracting meaning. It’s a special challenge to experience the unseen or unheard, but it’s also the only way to grow and evolve.

 

Artists have the power to move and soothe, both in body and in mind; and it’s an innate part of what makes us human. As art and creativity are more intangible elements, there’s much more research to be done in terms of how they play into the overall human function, particularly in the brain. However, advancements in biotech are showing signs of technology hacking away at the existing knowledge gap, if only through tiny baby steps. As recently as the end of 2020, in November, researchers out of the University of Southern California shared a new computing algorithm for decoding human behaviors through analysis of neural signals and patterns in the brain. It’s more of a software update than it is a polished outcome, as these algorithms utilizing brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) are attempting to measure the complex human brain after all.

 

Mary Shanechi, Assistant Professor & Viterbi Early Career Chair, leads a team of researchers at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering continually working to fine-tune these algorithms. In reference to the brain coding process, Shanechi explains, “Standard algorithms can miss some neural patterns related to a given behavior that are masked by patterns related to other functions happening simultaneously.” Her team’s latest findings, recently published in Nature magazine, were able to dissociate dynamic neural patterns in the brain, thereby broadening the spectrum of what can be modeled based on both brain and behavior signals. At present, brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) are capable of translating neural signals into commands that are able to communicate with external devices, such as a computer or robotic arm. These updates from Shanechi’s team could lead to further sophistication of the BMI software, from translating brain signals into an associated action (such as lifting an arm) to diagnosing (and perhaps even treating) otherwise intractable mental illnesses. And while it’s impossible to predict the future, this kind of research about the brain will one day very likely lead to insights about and perhaps even regeneration of the otherwise “immeasurable” qualities in life, like creativity.

 

The pursuit of decoding human behavior is well underway, following the completion of the human genome project in 2003, with no signs of slowing down as technologies rapidly continue to advance. It’s more a question of when, rather than if, when it comes to understanding all of the nuances of the human brain and perhaps one day to the point of replicating human activity. Welcome to Westworld. So, when will the questions relating to art and creativity be answered? Call it a work in progress.

 

In the meantime, embrace your inner human. Start creating. See the world. You may just become an artist.

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Source List

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Ackerman, C. E., MA. (2021, February 5). What is Neuroplasticity? A Psychologist Explains [+14 Exercises]. PositivePsychology.Com. https://positivepsychology.com/neuroplasticity/

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Cameron, J. (2002). The artist's way: A spiritual path to higher creativity.

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Larson, J. D. (2020, April 6). Why Do We Even Listen to New Music? Pitchfork. https://pitchfork.com/features/article/listen-to-music/

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USC Viterbi School of Engineering. (2020, November 9). Researchers Isolate and Decode Brain Signal Patterns for Specific Behaviors. https://viterbischool.usc.edu/news/2020/11/researchers-isolate-and-decode-brain-signal-patterns-for-specific-behaviors/

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Wald, E. (2015, July 24). The Night Bob Dylan Went Electric. Time. https://time.com/3968092/bob-dylan-electric-newport/