Excerpts from the RC journal CREATIVTY
Draft Policy for Artists' Liberation
- The essence of being human is the ability to be creative; to create new responses to new situations; to construct new, significant complexities where they did not exist before; to take charge of the environment and move it farther along the upward trend.
- It is true that spontaneous processes within the universe also move in this direction, but the human artist, being possessed of human intelligence, is able to move more directly and more rapidly. The artist can greatly enhance the already inherent tendency within the universe toward meaning, toward complexity, toward independence, toward freedom. The artist is, in this sense, a prototype of a human being.
- The artist is also a prototype of the working-class person in that society takes the value of the work produced by the artist (which may be extremely valuable) and returns to the artist only a small portion of the value produced.
Creativity No. 2, Page 3
Fighting Imperialism and Other Oppressions
In reality, a society without art is a dead society. The work done meets a deep, rational need for beauty (in its myriad forms, including sometimes a conscious use of "ugliness" and dissonance) and organization of form to express meanings. Artists and entertainers are society's counselors, providing contradiction to meaninglessness, hopelessness, despair, and oppression. People go to the cinema, theatre, and concerts, read a book or look at a painting or sculpture, in order, in part, to laugh and cry—to connect with their humanness—to connect with present time through focussing on the work and to turn away from distress and exhaustion.
To achieve excellence in this role, every artist has to work hard and long and make many mistakes. An artist is not only of value when he or she reaches the peak of excellence; it is a long road, a life's dedication, an ongoing process. This path needs recognition in all its stages, including the experiments and the so-called failures.
Sally Potter
Creativity No. 2, Page 13
Recovering Our Ability to See
By nature we collect and transfer (communicate) information. We do so to insure the upward trend of the universe. Even under the seemingly endless piles of oppression and in spite or our patterns, this natural process continues; it cannot be denied.
Art is an intricate and important part of this process. As artists, we collect and transfer information about a benign universe. We are part of a mass network of knowledge that sees as we see, learns as we learn, and grows as we grow.
John Fehringer
Creativity No. 2, Page 72