Of course, when you're adapting for yourself something that was born as a war strategy (Training Within Industry during WWII), later exported to car manufacturing, and from there to healthcare and the service sector, a certain amount of reframing and adjusting must be done.
Thinking about the artistic process, and its relation to the Thinking Production System, the factor where such reframing and new development has been required the most in my experience so far has been psychology. Psychology is a major factor in any artistic creation, that simply makes no difference in other endeavors. A car manufacturer does not wake up one morning and say "wait, there is something in the air... Maybe we should make sewing machines this week instead". The fact that, as an artist, I'm trying to get proficient in the part of the process that can be measured (standardization of methods, consistent quality of what comes out of the pipeline, cadence of the whole thing) should not make me forget that other factor, which not only is always there, but is defining. Any artistic creation worth its name has to do with some individual scratching his head at a corner, having doubts, prioritizing and discarding, arranging a bouquet according to forces that run deep and, make no mistake, we only understand partially. That same factor that will give all the "flavor of humanity" to a successful artistic piece also implies a huge amount of loneliness and decision fatigue along the way. And there is no way around that, the artist creates always in solitude; things that are created by committee will never have that flavor, although they can be necessary and even admirable in other contexts... In this realm mood is part of the equation. Sometimes, when you feel like "doing nothing" (not the same as "being inactive", mind you), you cannot disregard the impulse as easily as you would do in an ice cream factory, with a "you're just being lazy". In the creative sphere, well, it depends. Sometimes you are indeed being too lazy for your own good (maybe failing to cheer yourself up, or paying too much attention to others' lack of encouragement?), but other times what you're doing is waiting for a sign, becoming distracted on purpose. I have gazillion of examples where not trying so hard, or even giving the whole thing up, have all of a sudden provided me the element I was missing, just like that, poof, falling on my lap. Rationality is only one of the tools that artists use, but there are others. Learning to differentiate between "genuine lazy" and "wisely awaiting" (although man it itches like hell sometimes) belongs to that exercise of knowing oneself that every human must do. Psychological factors will never matter in technical processes; but in art, in a creative process of any kind, they have their weight and it must be acknowledged and dealt with. Maybe it would do us some good to consider them in other areas outside art too. I have a feeling that our overmaterialistic world disregards human psychology too easily, and we see the sad results every day.
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Nacho Jordi
I have a guitar and I'm gonna use it Archives
September 2018
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