Why this philosophical thought?  I am working a photo project now having to do with birds of prey.  The woman who is my primary contact said tonight that she knows artistic and creative people are the ones who most often volunteer to help with the work at a center for these birds.

I know people who will see a bird, an object or  provoking image and the comment is quick, "a bird" perhaps, then they are on their way with no further interest.  The ones I know who respond this way  (certainly a generalization not extented to all) are not inclined either creatively or artistically.

I wonder if this creative drive leads us to more open eyes and thoughts or is perhaps a result of that.   I will see the same creature or object or even unpleasant but provoking thing and I want to see closer.  They do not care one way or the other.

Sure, this is TomDart rambling again but what are your thoughts on this subject?  I certainly cannot measure how much more I might appreciate a thing than may someone else and some would believe me nuts to give time to these things. I do believe, however, that such appreciation is linked to my creative drive in some unknown manner.

Thanks for any comment.       TomDart.

I taught  teenagers for 26 years and I do so agree with you! Furthermore, there is a school of thought which, rather radically, divides folk into either creators or destroyers, and this attitude can extend to relationships and self image too.
I taught both art/craft, and interpersonal skills, and in the main those who had an interest in creative activities were also more willing to listen to other people in discussion groups.
It is a very interesting topic!

I agree with you guys.  Like you said, one can not generalize too much, but artistic people sometimes do seem to see things different than those who are less gifted in that department.

I think it does lead us to a more open mind.  We don't really see things as just being either black or white (at least I don't).  I see in shades of grey and add a tint of colour here and there.  I think artistic people go through life a lot easier than those who are not as fortunate.  I know I appreciate life more than those I do know to be artisticly inclined as well as turning each challenge I come across into an opportunity.

I love topics like this, not a rambling at all Tom.

I also agree - we do see and sometimes do things things differently as well.
You also need like minded people to work with.

A lot of artists and photographers I know just can't do the 9 to 5 routine, some I know would rather be broke than working full time, because the job or the travel time can destroy the creative spirit.   

For the last year I've been fortunate enough to be at university,  while that was a business course, it's been in a small environment where new ideas and creativity,  exploration and espically new ways of thinking was encouraged, as a result  I've together some great original pieces of work.

Now thats over I need a job badly. yet I've turned some down recently because the idea of commute to london every day just didn't appeal. OK it's harder to find work locally and salaries are lower, but I belive a happy movitated person is going be a more passionate and productive worker than someone who's been stuck in a cattle truck for 3 hours. 

Between the over-simlified "good and bad" "creative and destructive" etc thetre is life. Between "black and white" there a whole rainbow that cannot be cut up into seven colours.

You always destroy when you create, and you always create when you destroy.

You see the world as you are because you're limited to a subset of "facts" that can enter your conscience depending on your convictions.

Cretaive people don't see things differently: the see them without reducing them to well-known dismissable facts.

It's all a question of being alert and awake, not taking things for granted and entering into a relationship with what catches your attention..

Quote:

"Artistic/Creative People See Life In A Different Way"

Question:

Different from what..?
Does this mean 'different from normal people' or 'different from other artistic/creative people'..?

What I mean to say is:
every artistic/creative person (and many other persons as well) has his own very individual way of looking at life, depending on his own sensitivities and experiences. There's no such thing as one different artistic way for seeing things. If that was the case, I wouldn't want to be an artistic/creative person.

So if the title said: "Every Artistic/Creative Person Sees Life In A Different Way", I would agree... but there are Many Different Ways...
And an individual, different way of looking at life is not an exclusivity for artists... but maybe it's a necessity if you aspire to be called one...

(one more little footnote: read the signature line under this text...) ;o)

I did not mean to imply there is but "one" different way since that would be blatantly stupid of me. The creative and artistically inclined  are individuals, just as is everyone else.   Perhaps the thought that some aspects of life are appreciated by the artistic/creative and overlooked or simply not of concern to others has some validity.  

 We not only need all sorts of people, we have all sorts and I don't want to live in conformity village.

... glad you put that right, Tom ;o)

(forgive me, I saw the thread and read your valid thoughts about seeing in a different way, and then several replies sort of just seemed to agree... that just didn't conform to the meaning of the thread, so I just felt I 'had to disagree' in some way) ;o)

Yikes! A poster disagree on a thread? What is this place becoming.  : )

IMHO i would have to say yes but in different stages for different people at different times of their lives.
i believe an open minded individual or one with less clutter would have a more creative perspective of things then someone who is the opposite.

Interesting topic .

Upon reflection it seems to me that artists have a sense of melancholy.  It is this that makes them question and reject the worlds everyday assumptions.

Great art is often produced by troubled souls in times of great stress.  Witness Munch's The Scream or Picasso's Weeping Woman, there are countless other examples, but I'll leave it there for now.

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=11871

http://www.edvard-munch.com/gallery/anxiety/scream.htm

It's true than many works of art radiate a certain melancholy, but there are many others that don't. It's also the romantic era that cultivated the apotheosis of the suffering artist. I doubt whether it is really necessary to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to be creative. It's part of life, that's all.

I guess that the excitement of being there, alive and living, becoming part of the whole (environment), is more important than the existential suffering.
Haven't you all felt this when taking pics?

@Tom;

I think your subject  title says it all....I don't think that artistic/creative people "see" life....I think that artistic/creative people "feel" life.

That, in my view, is what makes them different....

I just finished watching Meet Joe Black... so i'd tend to agree with the romantics in here.  (would recommend watching it to anyone really - very interesting look into "life")

And as to the OPs question - i think it would be interesting to see how this discussion would progress in a forum in which there was no "artistic" or "creative" pursuit shared by the members.

In fact i am fairly sure that if you were to ask anyone if they were "creative" they would not reply in the negative, but in shades of positive.  Even an accountant whose job is kinda inherently viewed as being non-artistic would profess to being creative... new ways to solve old problems and all that.

As for viewing life, i think that everyone sees life in a different light, my dad told me the other day he read an that linked intelligence to non-religious sentiments, but i know some incredibly intelligent people who are devout practicing christians.  There are "generalisations" you can assume, but there are also individuals who have their own views on things.  So, i'm sure there is a creative person out there who sees life the same as a non-creative/artistic person.  Outlook on life is not confined to one variable...

And nor can "life" be confined to the way one views it or "feels" it.  I'm sure an artistically minded person feels love in the same way as a non artistic person... yet i think what you are getting at is the appreciation of life in it's aesthetic beauty (flowers, a summer breeze and even a melancholic bitter-sweet view on tragedy) rather than life itself.  A more "thoughtful" approach to what life is rather than acceptance and experience of our state of being perhaps.

insert more profound drivel here ad infinitum

Some thoughts at least...

As Rich said above:

' I'm sure an artistically minded person feels love in the same way as a non artistic person... yet i think what you are getting at is the appreciation of life in it's aesthetic beauty (flowers, a summer breeze and even a melancholic bitter-sweet view on tragedy) rather than life itself.  A more "thoughtful" approach to what life is rather than acceptance and experience of our state of being perhaps.'

And, I will insert more profound or less profound drivel. : )   First of all, I have tried to avoid the word "artist" and open a can of worms of definitions.  I allude to the artistically/creatively inclined, and of creativity more inclined to the arts stemming from life and imagination.

Take for instance the consumate craftsman, the one who produces the perfect object.  This person may be the sort who does this from a design provided.  "Give me the plans and I will do it very well" and indeed they do.  Give the same person a blank canvas and a pallate of paints, or a pile of seasoned lumber and no painting is done and no cabinet is made.  The creative part is somewhere down the street.

Watch a child in a arts class or one at home who starts to show individual thinking and wants to do and make things original or at least first to them.  Provide some guidence and approval and that child may well develop artistically when creativity is free and allowed.   How many folks go to Nashville, Tennessee with a book of songs wanting to be published and wind up with nothing...I don't know. Perhaps their creative sides need direction beyond that particular culture.

In the least, they do see life in a way which has a drive to express and to use the blank canvas.  Somewhere in their mind is a means of filling the canvas...imagination and appreciation the consumate copy artist does not have in his bag.

I do believe artiistically/cleatively inclined persons do see life and nature differently in some ways than the others.  These folks may not have found a means to express those drives and may be the terrible craftsman at the task, yet find something in life they enjoy and something not missed by those who do not see what is around them and inside their thoughts in that ethreal, floating in the ethers way (with out better definition) the artistically/ creative inclined person may possess.  

Ok, now I have confused myself and need to take a creative respite.         Tom.

Is art creation or craft?

We have lessons on it... we "study" the old masters... we copy... we imitate and outright steal ideas morhping them into our own.  Is not the thought that we are "creative" just another way of expressing the fact that we apply human reactions to what our pursuits are, in this case photography which is traditionally classed among "art" and thus pigeonholed into consisting of photographers who are "creative" and "artistic"?  Surely the Glass blower studied his art and has used a wide range of techniques to know how to create the glass from a set of principles, whether those principles or blueprints are codified on a piece of paper or known by heart as a set of learned rules and methods makes no difference to his "creation" of the blown glass from silica and fire..

The same as the person who has a paint brush in hand and a blank canvas... the first time he or she puts brush to canvas will probably be utter rubbish, just as the first time the glass blower tried his hand the glass probably burst and dripped onto the floor...  The only difference here is the medium of the craft. So the "artist" is the painter and thus creative and the glass blower is the "craftsman" and therefore not creative?  I dont think so... i'm sure the same could apply to any other walk of life you care to use to encapsulate the concept of "non-artistic/creative"... even an accountant.  Humans are inherently creative i think, and thus anything we apply ourselves to creates something - the mathematician sees beauty in numbers and creates answers to problems, the politician tries to work out a problem through dialogue and creative political manoeuvring (no situation is the same so there has to be creation there), the computer programmer creates all the time even the destructive hacker is a creator of viruses and hack methods... the list can go on. So basically i think i'm saying that i dont think there is an "us and them" with the whole "creative" thing, it is just our creative outlets take their form in different areas, whether that is the traditional art scene or whether it is being an infantry commander on the front lines.  It just seems "artistic" is a societal/traditional label put to those whose creative outlets create something which only has an aesthetic value.

And i think that gets me back to my original point in the previous post.  That by the usage of the word "artistic" you are referring to those who attach a higher aesthetic value in something of no practical use than the next person (as i'm sure even the least "artistically" inclined out there can see beauty in something aesthetic - i know at least 50% of the population appreciate counter-curves of a certain type).  And in that sense it is obvious that these sorts of people will see things in life with a view which is probably better described as enhanced in certain areas, rather than "different".

Ug - sorry... if you got through that and understood what i meant, well done ;)

it sort of reminds me of a conversation that i had about athletes with a friend, whereas some are naturals and others have to work at it.

Artiistic/creative and consumate craftsman are not mutually exclusive.  Yet, some craftsmen have little appreciation of the art except for the perfect completion of it..they sill face the blank canvas while another consumate craftsman may see it quite differently and create a perfect work.  

Ahh..I did open a can of worms. That's what you get when thinking folks respond and have a need to speak.    I will not debate the artists definiton but will see a difference in the aesthetic view of life of the artistic/creative and those who do not have these qualities.  Fair enough?

Now to sleep for perhaps mundane dreams.      Tom.