Guest spot - Seshu Kiran GS - The Art of the Matter

Arizona by Seshu Kiran GS, used with permission of the artist.  

What is creativity?  

Is it taking an abstract idea and crystallising it into something tangible?

And should the process of creativity also have an impact on the practitioner as 

well as the reader / viewer / listener / purchaser? 

On the face of it, writers deal in words and are distinct from artists. 

And yet... 

Many of those stages and challenges are the same. 

Here, in his own words, Seshu Kiran GS - an artist living in Los Angeles - gives an insight into his process, his beautiful paintings, and how he expresses himself on the canvas. 

1. What was it that originally drew you to painting? 

That is a bit of tough question! But yes, as a child, I was imaginative and used to draw a lot. Watercolors and color pencils happened to me when I was in fourth grade. I used to love my exploring my imagination and I was captivated by the visual elements around me. 

2. Do your works have an emotional element or story to them, whether it's apparent in the work for something personal for you in their creation? 

In terms of emotional element and story, both are important. As I always say, I derive my inspiration not just from visual reality around me, but also travels, stories, movies, etc. Most of the landscape paintings that I do these days are of an emotional element, expressed through color, texture and form! It's a struggle before a painting is born!

Having a personal experience is not always the necessary start point for a painting, but yes it is an added advantage. Most of my paintings are from my imagination without a photographic reference.

I have always seen a pattern of colors that I choose from based on emotions!! There is some connection there!!

3. Are you artistically inspired by literature? 

Maybe there is an overlap of influence and philosophy. Literature is also an imaginative art,

where the writer undergoes a deep visual process and arranges what they see and experience into words, like a jewelry of precious stones!

Words, sentences and chapters, each beautiful at their own discreet level; from expression in sub-elements, to expression in the gross level. In a similar process, the same thing happens in painting, from sub-elements to the entirety!

It sounds an atypical combination. I don't know if I actually derive inspiration from their works, but I enjoy the writing of Emerson and Thoreau, and both Hemingway and Rand for the process. 

Each distinctly stood not just on a fictitious cajolery of words, but gifted us their own philosophies and chiseled a character of freedom in this land and elsewhere. Conformists like Paul Krugman downplay the importance of their philosophy, but it is still relevant in these days!

I have yet to encounter that post-modern figure that I could find a spark from. Because these days, post-modern and progressive types thrive by shutting down your rational apparatus and subtly demanding and chaining peer conformity! 

4. How do you define your work?

I am a sauntering child amused at various things. I welcome you to share my joy, and my world, with a big smile!!

5. When you exhibit, do you offer a descriptive explanation of what the work is 

about?

In my personal experience, when most viewers stop at my painting, they look into it. And they stare for quite some time and they smile! Actually they engage with that image. That is the best reward I could ask for and I always appreciate it.

The next thing they do is look at me, and then I start to explain the background of that painting. Sometimes I even miss out the title of the painting and it sells untitled! Most of my buyers say that my paintings have a distinct and strong presence.

When you are in a beautiful place, the experience and the conversation happening inside you is your own! It is invaluable. Similarly when a viewer is 'inside' my painting, I don't want to overpower their imagination and experience with mine. 

6. Do you start with form or flow? 

That's a brilliant question! Actually a tough one again! Sometimes, I don't have time even to title my work! I feel it's a nice thing to happen. For me, grabbing that flow of emotion and quickly putting it on canvas is important.

Form and flow are intertwined. Form without flow is mundane. And flow without form is directionless. May be are they like Yin-Yang? Or the triangles in star of David?!! The counter-nature is always trying to throw you out of balance. It's our challenge, as artists, to stay in balance to counter it!

7. How has your creative process evolved and in which ways has it changed 

over time? 

Yes. I am constantly learning and implementing. I have a lot of learning to do on a daily basis, which keeps me busy. One day, I pick composition and the next day I may be drawn to human anatomy. Colors always surprise me and delight me in different ways. 

Also, I can say, I was always drawn to realism. It is not just about representing forms, but a mood, unity and meaning that I can create. The process of realism respects facts. And takes artistic liberties around that fulcrum. I can't paint clouds in green unless it means something even in its abstract sense. 

With respect to technique and implementation, I keep learning from other artists, both living and deceased. I like the aptness and joy in Norman Rockwell's paintings. I like the Italian master, Dario Campanile, who painted that Paramount Pictures' mountain! I've had the privilege to have met him and I talked to him at his show in Newport Beach.

Some of Seshu Kiran's work can be seen on his Facebook page 

https://www.facebook.com/artkiran/ 

He is currently exhibiting his artwork in and around Los Angeles.

Living with PTSD - a UK exhibition

Creativity serves many purposes. It can take us on journeys of the imagination, enable us to present new and interesting ideas to others, and even allow us to begin to heal. 

My friend, Villayat 'SnowMoon Wolf' Sunkmanitu, uses photography and poetry as a coping mechanism for living with PTSD and also as a way of raising awareness about PTSD and the therapeutic benefits of creativity.

Having produced Words of a Wolf, The Way of the Wolf and Soul of a Wolf, he has created an exhibition, Living with PTSD, which shares his work along with insights he has gained from the spiritual traditions of the Native American Lakota tribe. 

The exhibition will be housed at various locations across the UK and is showing from 5^{th -} 30^th November 2013 at Leicester People’s Photographic Gallery, 2 Wellington Street, Leicester LE1 6HL.

There will be a chance to meet Villayat on the opening night from 6:30pm – 9pm on Tuesday 5^th November 2013.  You can find out more about his work by visiting his website: www.wolf-photography.com. 

He would also be happy to hear from you if you have a suitable UK venue for hosting the exhibition. Please contact him via his website.

VILLAYAT ‘Wolf ’ Sunkmanitu has gone to extreme lengths to cope with the daily struggles of post traumatic stress disorder. The former RAF policeman, who was stationed in Northern Ireland in the mid 1980s, has been down the conventional route of NHS therapy and private counselling sessions and tried less orthodox methods by spending time with Native American tribes who practise healing ‘Earth Medicine’.  Staying mainly with the Lakota tribe of the Great Plains in North America helped him explore the root of his PTSD.

The 49-year-old, who grew up in Highfields, Leicester, says: “When you’re learning about ‘medicine tools’ from teachers of this path, you’re learning about working on your spirit – your soul – and it’s a holistic form of medicine that affects your mind and body too.”

Numerous visits to indigenous tribes also enabled him to explore an affinity he feels with wolves and is where the name ‘Snow Moon Wolf’ was bestowed on him by one of the teachers, White Eagle. There, in the wilderness, he was able to photograph wolves and for once, away from the rat race, he felt at peace.

Photography is not the only coping mechanism he has found to handle PTSD, which has wrecked his opportunities to work and forced him to retire on health grounds.  Poetry is also a form of creative therapy – although his poems don’t make comfortable reading.  Titles such as Inner Turmoil, Survivor and Demons in my Soul clearly expose the torment, alienation and stigma he feels.

Villayat, who was born to Indian parents in the UK, says: “PTSD can be very debilitating. When you have a physical injury that people can see, they seem to be more comfortable with you than dealing with an invisible wound.

Villayat went undiagnosed for 12 years – a time he refers to as “hell.” As well as his own emotional difficulties, there’s a sense of injustice and anger about the way he believes many veterans of the Armed Forces have been let down by politicians.

It is 30 years since Villayat left the RAF. He was 19 when he was sent to County Down, Northern Ireland, for a two-year tour in 1983, assisting the RUC and other units engaged in counter terrorist activities. He attributes the mental scars to suppressing his fear during incidents he was involved in as part of his duties and an explosion in Belfast. Anxiety, hyper-vigilance, depression, forgetfulness, disturbed sleep and flashbacks became part of his everyday life and it wasn’t until 1995 that he was officially diagnosed with PTSD after a serious road accident.

Even after diagnosis and treatment, he still can’t cope with busy places or potentially troublesome places so he avoids pubs and concerts and would rather be in the wilderness than walk down a city street.

Make Believe for Grown Ups

Creative thinking and the use of the imagination are often hailed as two of the secrets to productivity, originality and a whole bunch of other 'alities' (except banality). Most people can remember a time when, as children, we would play as characters from TV, the cinema or books, or even from our own imaginings.

I'm sure I'm not alone (it would be interesting to do a poll) in still remembering some of those characters even now, as an older child in my forties. I may have been a little unusual though in also having subsidiary characters and subplots as well.

One of the highlights of corporate project meetings, for me, was during the Ideas phase when we would brainstorm scenarios (before brainstorming became thought showers and after it had reverted, last I'd heard). Apart from the endless pleasure of calling out the first thing that came into my head - knowing that the scribe was duty bound to record everything, no matter how seemingly nonsensical - there was also the opportunity to try on different viewpoints and approaches. One way of achieving that by playing a part - designer, engineer, user, marketeer, customer, etc.

Of course, however much we may invent a character - whether it's in writing or for a specific function (first date, interview, new identity), there is always an element of us in there somewhere. And that element reveals something about us. In the case of some project meetings, it probably revealed my desire to do something different. Persona non gratis, you might say (unless you had a classical education).

I was thumbing through an old notebook recently and discovered a monologue, written from an invented character's viewpoint. Like the very best of first draft material, it was written at a gallop, with very little filtering going on - just a voice and its ideas rampaging across the page. It never made it to a second draft because I couldn't find a use for it, in anything I was working on at the time. What comes to mind now is a surly patriarch, trying to instil wisdom while his apprentice struggles to grasp what he's really talking about.

The tyranny of time is the tyranny of the mind. Its currency is certainty and inflexibility. Blinded desire is its ally. To be free we must free ourselves, purge our fixed expectations and let go of long held and cherished perspectives. Lose ouselves in the void to emerge cleansed, victorious and liberated.

Peace isn't merely the absence of conflict. It is the conditions in which confict is unable to flourish. Peace, like conflict, is a harvest. The ground must be prepared, tended and nurtured. The seeds must be planted long before the reaping and the crop attended to. And when the harvest has been gathered, what reminds must be ploughed back to resume the cycle.

Creativity requires us to make contact with that inspirational spark and to let its mystical flame engulf us. It is a process of connection and reception, and can be learned.

What we are each here to fulfil is the expression of our own essence. The courage to pur our souls into the cup of experience and drink it back in a banquet of becoming.

Everything you have felt, have known have dreamed - all lies within you. Ready to serve as your guide, your warning and your inspiration.

Lift yourself free from your burdens. Set the baggage of your past and the imagined future to one side. Rest at the roadside and wait. Is it yet too late to change your journey?

Creativity, illness and The Silent Hills

A recent piece on the BBC website by Health report Michelle Roberts, caught my attention. Headlined 'Creative minds mimic schizophrenia', the article cited a conclusion drawn by scientists at Sweden's Karolinska Institute.

In essence, brain scans of highly creative people and those who suffer from schizophrenia show striking similarities.

You can read the BBC piece here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/10154775.stm

We are, of course, used to the notion of the tortured genius, and it may be worth noting that a popular creative writing technique is to just close our eyes and listen to 'the voice within'. I have used this approach to good effect, on occasion, when a clear voice will come through and tell its story. In my opinion, when this does work, the stories themselves have a different quality and arrive whole, with little plot or narrative editing required.

I used to travel regularly between the West Country and London; so regularly that I'd trained myself to see travelling time as writing time. One time, I looked at the cover of a train mag and saw a tiny photo of green fields. From there, I hopped from Green Hills to Silent Hills. Then I closed my eyes and listened for that elusive voice from the depths of my imagination. I didn't stop to question what was coming or from where it had been influenced, I just waited and listened, as my pen hovered.

The Silent Hills arrived over the course of the journey, in free flow. The protagonist's voice was there from the start and my only real effort lay in keeping pace with him and writing down his words. When we pulled into Paddington, I ran to the Underground so I could sit down again and pick up the thread.

The story was published in Issue 2 of the Black Market Review. The Silent Hills was subsequently published as an ebook by Musa Publishing.