6.1. There are times in the creative cycles where the urge to express something is stronger than the discipline of a qualitative control on the output. The faster outputting and production of variations of some kernel ideas allows for a deeper and more purposeful exploration of the original ideas themselves.
6.2. The creative process that ensues is like a stream of consciousness, only in this case applied to visual art. A meaningful output but not definitive, a slim production workflow, little or no time spent in reviewing. And then repeat over and over again.
6.3. Arguably, the value of the artistic expression and its product should be in the workflow itself together with its insights, rather than just in the output, which is like a single link of a long chain.
6.4. Two examples of this come to mind. The first one dates back to 2013 when my good friend J told me about this childhood best friend of his, who had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, with only few weeks left… J told me how he had been profoundly hit, speechless, the mouth open in disbelief. What came to my mind was the feeling of pain, sorrow, sadness, regrets, experienced all at once. The experience of something finite and precious, the last chance of enjoying it. And then in a more abstract way the empathy, the joy of friendship and sharing, the sense of a looming end.
6.5. An image came to mind, that of a perfect circle, drawn with a Chinese brush, e-sumi style. The 2011 Tsunami in Japan was still fresh in our hearts. Somehow this circle had become for me the symbol of this universal pain and sorrow, which is also specific and personal and finds expression in the human face. Also the symbol of love and a positive human bond. From this point of view, perfect. And I kept drawing it, each time centering the attention on the shape and focusing on the execution, each time exploring and understanding something different springing out of it.
6.6. A more recent example of a “stream of consciousness” type of work is from 2022, at the time I was working at the first Hopedia NFT collection. The artistic exploration was on words, statements, and how they influence the environment and are influenced in return. A reflection on written words and concepts and the dynamics of the interaction with the environment and the associated message (see https://hopedia.org/post/4-words-create/) .
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