February 2009 Contents
I. Working Styles
II. Energy Management: Translations from the Psych Research Lab, the Board Room, and the Shrink’s Couch
III. Friends in Print: When you feel like reading
IV. Creative Links
V. Newsletter and Info: Share this newsletter, subscribe, or unsubscribe

I. Working Styles
One of the privileges of coaching creative folks is rediscovering the wide variety of good, solid ways to move the work forward.

Some folks approach creating as problem-solving. For example, artists who translate from photos to another medium may get great satisfaction from their unique way of deriving values from the photos. For others, there are no problems to be solved, only the wisdom to follow small and large impulses for the next step, letting pieces unfold as they put their hands on materials.

Then there are the different rhythms between and among pieces including the value of the well-timed break, leaving a piece alone for while to reap the freshness of a new look when you return to it. In the other direction, some stay focused on one piece from start to finish.

If I were really a good psychologist, I would clarify for you which types of personalities use which approaches, arranging them in neat little clumps by their working style. Well, no one has funded me to do such a study, and I am actually a recovering psychologist and emerging artist. I’m more interested in which approach I take with which pieces I make than in categories of artists.  To be more accurate, I’m curious about the different ways of working that are pulled out of me by each piece.

Even if you’ve only completed a few pieces, you can use hindsight to look for patterns. Maybe some pieces were energized by stickiness of an aesthetic problem calling out to be solved. Maybe others flowed gently from an initial impulse to a complete whole. Most likely there are patterns I’ve not mentioned. As I said, visiting this variety on a regular basis is a privilege of coaching and I love the surprises that show up and the openness they bring to my own work.
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II. Energy Management: Translations from the Psych Research Lab, the Board Room and the Shrink’s Couch
Galenson, David G. Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity. 2006.
While I’m extolling the variety in how artists work, David Galenson, an economist, has done research that does propose two basic working styles over the whole life of artists. He analyzed the ages of modern innovative painters when they created their most influential work, using the prices paid at sale and the number of citations in art history books (a method roundly criticized by some art critics). Two style groups emerged; the Conceptual pattern of the young geniuses who made breakthrough works early in their careers and the Experimental pattern of old masters whose work steadily improved over time.

He makes a comparison of Cezanne and Picasso to highlight the differences. Picasso epitomizes the Conceptual’s discontinuous path marked by totally new styles grounded in conceptual theory (“I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them”.*). The Conceptual artist also does more preliminary planning and sketches  (Picasso made an estimated 400 studies for Les Demoiselles d”Avignon**; see public domain copy to the left). Galenson contrasts this with Cezanne’s Experimental style focusing on steady advance toward an unreached visual goal with each new picture (“I progress very slowly…”***).

Rather than pass on the author’s tables of which artists fall into which category, I encourage you to visit the many stories and examples he’s gathered of how innovative painters worked. His contrast of Conceptual and Experimental styles may help you more clearly know whether and how much you’ve utilized one or the other over time, perhaps for different works, perhaps even at different stages of working on the same piece. And, if you find you’ve mostly been in one style, it may be useful to see if you feel an invitation to move away from one into the other, if only for a brief break into fresh new areas of format, content, or material.
*From Golding, J. Cubism, 1959. quoted on p. 9
**Estimate by historian William Rubin, quoted on p. 9
***Letter to painter friend Emile Bernard ,  quoted on p. 7
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III. Friends in Print: When you feel like reading
Progoff, Ira. At a Journal Workshop. Revised Edition 1992.
I’ve often pointed to different ways that artists use journaling to support their creative process. There are formats for visual journals, for hand and computer written ones, and for combinations of all that become works of art in themselves. Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages (Artist’s Way, 2002) is probably the most well-known where the format is three pages, handwritten and then not referred to again.