For over 20 years I have been fascinated about the "Map Making" process of the creative experience, and how artists relate to their practice.

​

There seems to be a unique opportunity to see some of the common patterns in order to make sense of the often baffling, exotic, hyper-abstract aspects of modern art (see JF Martel and Leonard Shlain's writing on this - references below).

​

Reaching somewhat back to the 19th century philosophical writings on art such as John Dewey, the meaning of art as "experience" remains a provocative statement, and lived out only in pockets of counter-culture movements (for example festivals such as Burning Man).

​

But it is impossible to imagine our lives without the expressive arts - something that the cultural anthropologists can state as being core to the human condition and evolution - going right back to the first cave paintings. 

​

With our post-industrial society embracing the "concrete" (e.g. scientific research breakthroughs) or "high performance" (e.g. sports, musical) examples of successful 'Flow" states as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (with the worthy qualities of high skill and high challenge), there is now a new opening for society to value the proposed 'Divergent' type of flow that occurs in the unique qualities of the creative process - as described ever more eloquently by research in the cognitive and contemplative - spiritual practice domains.

 

In the zone of Divergent Flow, I propose we access states of wonder and surrender and listening, vs. peformance or achievement type states of Flow.