Captured by Curiosity

Curiosity is the gate to a new world. It lures the Artist and creator towards the path of exploration and discovery. It could start with perceiving a single thread that leads to final finished work of art, or the other way around, such as perceiving a finished work of art, so gorgeous, that one must find out the first thread from which it all came about. It works both ways. A new way to see curiosity, shifted my work as an artist, and that is what I want share with you. This new perspective involves seeing that curiosity is the driving force or the fuel of the creative process.

The device on which you are watching this, the lamp that is illuminating your surrounding, the clothes you are wearing, the very space that you are in have all come into existence because someone, at sometime, somewhere was captured by curiosity. Maybe it was a thing that they felt could be improved, or an abstract idea in their mind that caught their attention, or a perceived problem they needed to solve. In the background of it all was the force of curiosity - a desire to learn something new. Albert Einstein said - “I have no special talent, I am only passionately curious." In the Creative process, the Artist uses his capacity to be curious in every stage. During the first stage of the creative process, be it research or ideation, the Artist is actively curious about where the right starting point to the project may be, or what is that initial spark or idea that will start the ball rolling, or curious about finding that essential reference image or sentence or scene that will ignite an association in the brain which will lead to the development of the project. Next, in the development stage, the artist is actively experimenting, ideating, putting things together under the bright light of curiosity once again, using it, to drive the exploration forward. During production or craft, the creator is curious about every little move, line, image, sound and beat, camera angle and so on that is appearing to happen and that makes up the finished thing. And finally, when the thing is finished, the Artist and creator becomes curious to step back and see how it all turned out. The Creative process starts and ends with curiosity, its the driving force. But what is most fascinating to me, is the role curiosity plays when a new creative or aspiring artist begins their adventure in the creative field. When they are actively trying to discover his or her, passion or medium, or inspiration for the first time. That first spark that leads the artist and creative through the portal into the new world. So this next bit of the episode is for the new creative, the person who has taken the leap to build a life and career out of doing creative work but also, for the ones at the precipice, who trying deciding weather or not to take the leap but something maybe holding them back. This is what I have to say to you — Forget future outcomes. And what has already happened. Just simply go towards what interests you, immerse yourself in it. Sense where curiosity is calling you. I remember when this happened to me. I was a teenager. I happened to look upon an animation by the leading Design and Animation Studio - Buck, I don’t quite remember where, maybe YouTube. And from the very first second of the video I was captured. It was as if for a few seconds I was submerged into the ocean, holding my breath. The physical world around me dissolved; my vision focused into only the dimensions of the screen within which the video was playing, nothing but the animation existed, the device on which I was watching it was not there, the study table was not there, the room I was in ceased to exist, and the watcher himself, vanished. It was just the animation. The colours. The characters. The backgrounds. The shapes. The rhythm, flowing in and out and up and down and through and wide, small and big, on and off, it was, a masterpiece. A plethora of emotions and ideas burst up like a fountain and spread across my entireZz being, and then suddenly, a slide, bounce, flip and stop, the animation ended and I was released, my breath returned with a deep inhale and I was back on the surface of the ocean. That’s how the teenager was captured by curiosity, and since then, nothing has ever been the same. Curiosity is your superpower. Circumstances may change, goals and visions may change, people and things may come and go, but curiosity will always be yours, in other words, you are curiosity.