Creativity Sweetspot

Stephen Park – 2017

What they don’t teach you at art college & finding the creativity sweetspot

Everything you make is better than everything you didn’t
Stephen Park, Devon

Aim: to help artists to survive and flourish

Who for: artists of all levels

Duration: 2 days

Intro:
Through his experience with artists and working in art colleges around the country, Stephen Park shared useful observations and insights in an illustrated talk, What they don’t teach you at Art College. This was followed by a practical workshop developing his concept of the ‘creativity sweetspot’.

Activities:
Illustrated talk equipping artists with ‘a metaphorical road map and compass, about action, creative flow, resilience and other animals – what they don’t tell you at art college and how to know what to do next’.
Practical workshop involving each participant making several artworks in a series. Each series is established by one artist but completed in turn by all the others in the group, with the intention of maintaining the integrity of each ‘family’ of artworks. Discussion about the characteristics required to grant an artwork membership of each cluster. Finding that ‘creativity sweetspot’, talk was also about why this might be useful, what was observed by doing it and the virtue of ‘clarity’.’

Results:
A steep but fun learning curve for all artists involved, challenging preconceptions and old habits. Success of opportunity for artists to connect, learn, critique and make work together.
A large body of varied and interesting artwork.

Conclusions:
Artists left feeling they’d learnt a great deal both in terms of their position in society as creative thinkers and doers, and as more effective practioners with a better understanding of the essential characteristics intrinsic in ‘good art’ – i.e. the creative sweetspot.