Body + Soul

One of the great gifts my parents gave me was my name - Matthew Atabet. Atabet is a Basque word meaning Body and Soul. My parents were free-spirits, hippies, and they learned this name from a book entitled Joseph Atabet. Now, I had never read the book until grad school. I was working on my thesis which was about how art transforms reality and I decided to call up the book's author to have a chat. I figured it might help me understand more of my own artistic process and identity. Interestingly enough, the book turned out to be about an artist who painted pictures which literally became reality! This was the topic of my thesis played out in a very dramatic form. Additionally, Atabet lived in San Francisco, which is where I live now. Ironically, the book about creating reality had itself created a large portion of my identity.

The key here is that creativity is closely linked to identity and reality. Creativity can be thought of as the combination of imagination and reality: the soul (imagination) integrating with the body (reality). In other words, if we are not under undo stress, it is easy to have lots of idea. But, the difficulty comes when we attempt to make those ideas reality. Here, we must have a mind for practical circumstances - those people we consider creative are creative for their output, not simply the fact that they have interesting ideas within themselves. Until the idea is expressed it remains unreality. The expression brings reality and the expression is what requires creativity.

This idea of constraints is particularly important with deadlines. There is the work we dream of doing and then there is the work we can get done with the time allowed. I had a pleasant surprise a few years ago when a deadline was moved up beyond my control. I had to scramble and at first this change caused me a lot of stress. When you plan a work to fit a schedule, changing the schedule may mean going back to the planning stage. That was the case here - I had to go all the way back to the planning stage and create something that fit within the remaining few weeks. But, I chose to view the change as a chance to exercise my creativity and I must say the final piece was even better than the original plan (this was the work entitled "How can we sing in a foreign land?"). The show was a success and I received a lot of positive feedback.

I also think of creativity being linked to identity. Identity is a vehicle that allows us to go places. Expanding our identity allows us to travel even further. In a sense, an expanded, refined identity allows us to remove constraints ahead of time. Being specific in who we are opens new opportunities. Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of Wired magazine, called this concept "you+." You have your identity, but that identity can always be expanded, made more specific, and refined. We can also pave the way for others to expand their own identities. By creating new technologies and new techniques, we make expressions possible in others that were not possible before.

Finally, creativity as a combination of imagination and reality also carries the idea of discipline. Creativity requires a platform of sorts to operate. By this I mean that a creative person must allot enough free time, enough resources, and enough energy for creativity to occur. We might have a lot of great ideas, but without the space and time for those ideas to connect with reality, they remain ideas. Here, we must assemble the equipment required, gather the people who inspire us, take care of our bodies, clear our schedules, and get down to work.

True education

There's a short parable I'm sure many of you have heard before. I think it illustrates quite well the mindset required to approach any creative endeavor. An art teacher once divided her class into two groups. Their assignment was to create clay pots. The first group would be graded on their very best pot while the second group would be graded solely on the number of pots they created. Not surprisingly, students in the first group, who had to create quality pots, put more time into their pieces. Most students created only one or two. Their pots were meticulous and studied. The second group, on the other hand, set off in a mad sprint to create as many pots as possible. Clay flew everywhere! Their work was often messier and some of the pots were malformed.

In the end, who made the best pots? Surprisingly, the students from the group required to make the most pots actually had the best work. Now, many of their pots were not perfect, but the repetition of the basics of pottery allowed them to excel over their peers who were hoping to create masterpieces. The lesson here is that trying to create a masterpiece rarely works. Instead, what works is creating continually, giving space for creativity, and not holding back the urge to create. At least in the beginning, until you find a methodology that fits you, it's important to focus on being prolific.

Often, focusing on results alone can lead to blocks in creativity. Our culture stresses over and over that results matter: we are graded, tested, evaluated, measured. But,  this attitude has an assumption built into it that we are in control of outcomes. Thus, if the work is not well received, we have failed. This will cause us to worry about the reception of work before the work is even completed. We may even abandon our work if we think it won't be well-received. In reality, we are only in control of the process. We can do our very best, but the outcome (how well our work is liked, whether it's commercially successful, whether it wins awards) is largely out of our hands.

Imagine that you're taking a class on modern literature. You might approach the class and say "I will get an A, that is my only goal!" To do this, you might learn the style of writing your tutor likes most and then try to emulate that. You might learn all of the facts, write excellent essays, and pull off a few harrowing all-nighters. And, you will probably get an A. But, because you've labeled anything besides an A a failure, you will encounter stress, worry, and will limit your creative options. Instead, if you say, "I will be the very best writer I can be, I will stretch my creative limits!" Then, you do risk not getting an A (people may not like your style) but, you will *grow*. And, this growth will give you such exhilaration that you will soon find you are thinking of nothing but writing. You will find yourself knowing a new part of yourself - that is true education.

And, I would say too that the truly successful creative people are those who have a deep love of the process and take outcomes with a grain of salt. G.K. Chesterton said that "anything worth doing is worth doing poorly." He meant that it's more important to *do* than to be perfect. Fear of imperfection will keep us from doing. At the end of the day, our own creative integrity is all we have control over. With everything, ask "am I doing my best?" and do not concern yourself with the rest. Of course, there is always room for feedback. But, ultimately, all we have is our own creative integrity to do our own best possible work.

Make it new

One of the most important parts of my artistic process is what I call the "platform." Many people assume that creativity is something entirely unbounded and uncontrolled. This view makes creativity out to be something magical, something to be possessed, and something that we either have or we lack (this is rather similar to our culture's incorrect understanding of talent). But, I've found that giving space to creativity allows it to occur much more frequently. This space is the platform, the background against which my work occurs.

My childhood was full of religious and spiritual experiences - tomes, scriptures, poetry, and letters themselves are thus very important to me. I'd say most of my work begins with a reverie upon a piercing written phrase - a few words which resonate. Such a phrase sticks with me for weeks at a time, and often leads to the creation of series of works. Needless to say, finding these resonant phrases holds great rewards for me and I devote quite a bit of time to reading. I read a wide range of subjects - classic novels, analytic psychology, philosophy of religion, semiotics, and poetry. Often though, I read with a 'soft gaze' meaning that I don't focus directly on the material itself but rather its phrasing. For me, the inspiration comes from the micro-narrative rather than the narrative itself - a few words are all I need but they must be the right words. So, literature forms the first part of my overall platform.

The next part is what I call 'hard problems.' Here, a hard problem may be anything from an interesting math equation, to a bit of programming, to a bit of history or sociology, to a troubling composition. The important thing is that I need situations that stretch my thinking in ways I would normally avoid. I find that this resistance helps me keep my visual work fresh. Additionally, by thinking about problems besides art, I'm able to encompass and digest a wider swath of human experience.

Time is the next pillar. I mark off two to three hours every day (regardless of whatever else is going on) to creativity. This means I'm at my workstation producing new work, or I'm doing some kind of research which will generate new ideas. Time to create is critical, and it must be sacred - nothing is allowed to get in the way of it.

Finally, intense physical exercise allows me to connect with my 'somatic imagination' - or, to feel the images that can only be felt by the athlete. It's important to me to not only observe life, but to be fully alive. To me, physical exertion awakens more primitive forms of understanding and keeps my work from becoming too intellectual and existential rather than experiential - otherwise, there's too much room for doubt to creep in and the art becomes stifled.

Subjectivism

One frustrating part of art education are the tacit assumptions made about the way art should be made. Now, these assumptions should not be gotten rid of. Rather, I mean they are frustrating in the sense that they provide a resistance which helps artists grow strong. One such assumption I encountered early on was the idea that the artist should draw what he sees. Well, I found that, even when looking at art, I did not see what was in front of me. Instead, an imaginary image would captivate me. These images seemed to arise in response to what I was observing, though they seemed to have only indirect, analogous relationships to the real world. Often, rather than a static image, I would see a film of sorts, or hear a sound, or experience the sensation of motion or time. So, I realized early that my perceptions didn't line up with those of other people, even of other artists. My imagination overruled my direct experience of the outer world, brining an inherent subjectivism that was profoundly personal to my practice.


Over time, I learned that psychology called this quality of internal subjectivism introversion. Rather than implying an attitude of meekness or shyness, this attitude meant that inspiration came from my response to the world rather than the world itself. It's obvious that our culture at the moment favors extroversion - the rise of facebook, twitter, and blogging along with our economic emphasis on services leaves few of us with any true private life. Immediately, I realized I would be breaking with social norms.


But, a deep sense of individuality inspired me to resist conformity and find out for myself the extent of my potential. I resolved to have a profound and lasting affect on the world around me. Of course, this influence would not come from direct social interaction. Instead, I found that by sharing my internal reactions externally through visual art, I could connect with others in a very deep way. This shared humanity has brought me much joy and has given me courage again and again to assert my individuality within a culture that, often unknowingly, prefers homogeneity.

Lots of new work!

Check out "Enyo", "I am the Source", and "My Soul is Round Like a Bird". These new series explore my obsession with texture and movement. Enjoy!

New Work: Yet to be Realized

See my latest work, "Yet to be Realized" - matthewatabet.com

New Work!

Check out "Eleven Years Old" and the "Mist" series - matthewatabet.com

In these works, I'm experimenting more with black and white and trying out a single point perspective. These pieces are about the dustier corners of childhood in America - the open spaces that are part of the American ideal of childhood but are so seldom experienced. The midwest was a kind of Orient for my generation - powerful, exotic, mysterious, and quickly disappearing within globalization.