Art and the Conscious Mind

Art and the Conscious Mind

Throughout the lectures and workshops in the Field module ‘Art and the Conscious Mind’ I learnt a lot about how to look at my own work in a different way, the whole idea of what consciousness is or could be, how different psychologists understand what the conscious mind is, how to free my imagination and how doing this makes someone more creative even when the work produced isn’t something that needs to be necessarily good.

Before this Field module I was struggling quite a lot with my artwork, however the lectures and workshops that came with the module really helped me open my mind in the sense of looking at the world in a more interesting and open way- that making artwork isn’t just about creating, it made me put more thought and care in to what I am doing before I start making the work. I did originally find the lectures quite difficult to get my head around, as there was so much to take in in such a short period of time. However, after reading through my notes after the lectures a few times I started to feel more comfortable with the information given to me. I still struggle a little with the whole idea of consciousness as there are so many different theories as to what it is and causes it; yet I found it very interesting.

Whilst in the workshops we had a more free and creative way of doing things. One of the workshops was with Theo Humphries where we played and created surrealist games. This is what particularly stuck out to me so far over the Field course as I have recently had a bit of a creative block where I haven’t felt very like I can create anything of any meaning or quality. As even though we weren’t creating amazing pieces of artwork it really helps to get in to the mood for creating, therefore a good technique to use before doing a piece of work that really matters, as it gets you in to the mind set of working, and I feel it really helps in the respect that it can give you ideas that may be quite odd that you would have never got before.

This workshop really shows what your imagination is capable of, for example the photo above is of some random words that our group picked, and then I chose a random few and drew a drawing of what it made me think of. This really gets your creative thoughts flowing and lets you be at one with your imagination and mind for a bit.

In another workshop the main thing that stuck out to me was the part where we did group meditation. As it stopped me from worrying about the stresses of everyday life and work, as well as when we finished meditating my mind felt so much clearer than before- really helping me feel ready for the rest of the day and for work. Meditation is what I am going to carry on doing to help me with everyday life, as well as to give me clarity in my artwork.