What I believed in 2004

I wrote this Credo in 10 minutes on 1^st November 2004.
My list of beliefs are different in 2019

It isn’t exhaustive. This wasn’t my list of beliefs 5 years ago. My views next week may be different.

• I believe anyone can be creative

• I believe creativity can be learned

• I believe creativity is primarily nurture, not nature

• I believe that genius is attainable by most

• I believe that genius is a concept of personal value, not a cultural accolade

• I believe creative people of the past are artificially held up as models, and that this is unhelpful. I believe this model discourages creativity in the present. The higher they are held up, the more powerful the shadow

• I believe creativity is about being oneself; fully, truly, actively

• I believe we need to see creative people of the past in terms of their processes rather than their products if we want them to be useful to us creatively

• I believe that creative history (the history of art for example) is not linear (chronological)

• I believe there is truth in the statement: The past doesn’t influence me, I influence it

• I believe that the notion of the Great Artist is an idea existing in a small pocket of history and is becoming shallow and redundant

• I believe the artefacts of greatest value (products of creativity) are the ones which truly represent their time but which celebrate possibility (Keywords: Zeitgeist. Avant-Garde. Experimental)

• I believe the concept of winners and losers (in a market controlled art world) blocks more creativity than it encourages

• I believe the range of activities and artefacts celebrated as “great” is too compartmentalised and too narrow

• I believe that creativity is stifled by taxonomy

• I believe that there is “great art”, but that this includes a wider range of artists, media, and products than the range included in any canon

• I believe the role of the audience is active

• I believe the creative act (and its artefacts) justifies itself or has no justification at all. The rest is marketing and publicity (which is fine, but isn’t art)

Jamie Crofts 2004