{"id":7015,"date":"2016-09-17T09:51:02","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T23:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/?page_id=7015"},"modified":"2023-02-24T19:52:09","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T08:52:09","slug":"holistic-thinking-interconnectivity-in-jewels-and-practice","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/?page_id=7015","title":{"rendered":"Holistic Thinking: Interconnectivity In Jewels And Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Holistic Thinking: Interconnectivity In Jewels And Practice, <\/em><\/strong>was presented at the 2016 SNAGnext<\/em><\/a> conference, in Asheville, North Carolina on the 19th of May, 2016.
<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This paper was my response to the SNAGnext<\/em> theme of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Wellness and Holistic Practices<\/strong> – Exploring the importance of living a well rounded life to stay healthy emotionally, physically and creatively as a maker.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

– – –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Holistic<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ignore the lofty title, this presentation is really about how we make magic in the studio. To get there let me start with a story about Andie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was back in Australia for a month last year, and while catching up with my big extended family and friends I was watching \u2013 actually she was hard to miss – my 20-month-old niece Andie. She wasn\u2019t particularly verbal at that stage but that didn\u2019t matter, she doesn\u2019t need words to announce that she\u2019s coming in a room; she\u2019s all about giving face and energy, dahling! When she arrives, she arrives<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right at this point Andie has learned a new word, so she\u2019s sidling up to everyone she knows and testing it out on them. Like all the best words, it comes with an action\u2026 Andie goes up to someone and says \u201cBody.\u201d while lifting her shirt and pointing to her torso. She then looks inquisitively at her target, expecting a response. Unless they had already begun to mimic her action, by lifting their shirt and saying, \u201cBody.\u201d back to her, her hand will have reached across to their belly area and begun raising their shirt to help them out. Pretty soon she\u2019s got everyone in on the action; my cousins, uncles, aunts, her great aunt \u2013 my auntie Gael, a very prim and properly attired woman with impeccable taste, is nervously lifting her cream silk shirt in public to say \u201cBody.\u201d along with Andie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andie has just discovered the meaning of body, and it is everything to her. She has a body! Look, you have a body?! Can you imagine anything better in the world?? Body! I\u2019m alive! See this? This is my body! It was delightful, inspiring to watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I know y\u2019all understand her joy. Of course you do. Y\u2019all are mostly jewelers. You spend your lives making things for your clients, friends, yourselves even, that say \u201cLook at me!\u201d \u201cLook at this? [point at hand] It\u2019s on my body? Oh, [point at other hand] a Caitie Sellers original \u2013 on MY body! This is on my Body!\u201d We are all here in this room because what we do is celebrate and glorify EVERY. SINGLE. BODY.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, to make beautiful things for and about the body, we use our bodies. And through the actions that we embody<\/em> to make our work, we are making our own bodies. We know this because research into neuroplasticity in recent decades has told us that our neuronal circuits are not hard wired; that with training over time we can rewire our brains, that\u2019s why we\u2019re told to exercise and meditate as doing so can impact things like the volume and density of grey matter.[1]<\/a> And of course we\u2019ve known for ages that our patterns of movement correspond to the strength of our musculoskeletal structure \u2013 so what we do sculpts our body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So exercise and meditation improves body and brain. And they give us the endurance and ability we need to create, which is handy as our creative impulse are all packaged into the same delightful meat blanket as our physical and emotional selves. Wouldn\u2019t it be handy if doing these things could also improve our emotional wellbeing..? Well, in the same way that nutritionists say that you are what you eat, for the creative I\u2019d argue that you are also<\/em> what you make. And eating good makes me feel well, and making good makes me happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohh, happy. Controversial! Am I really happy at the start of making a piece, when the gears are grinding and I\u2019m wondering how I\u2019ve ever made anything before cos it\u2019s just so haaard. And it\u2019s so time consuming and anxiety-inducing to think about what goes where, and worst of all, why? Why would I put that there, why do I even do this?  Who the hell would use a fry pan to make jewellery and why would anyone put a used fry pan on their body? And assuming that someone does, would that make them<\/em> the crazy person, or me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image<\/a>
Cold Handle – before<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

OR<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Am I in fact happier when I\u2019m in the zone, when a calm Zen-like feeling has washed over my body? When the tool in my hand is moving as an extension of my arm and my arm is the conduit of my eyes and brain, and my brain an agent of the universe at large, as if the planets themselves are spinning in order just to will me forward. At this point the work is just evolving in front of me as if by magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image<\/a>
Cold Handle, 2012. Steel, vitreous enamel, 925 silver<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So then, maybe then, am I happy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, this is something that bugged my friend here, [slide of name] Mr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [pronounced Me-high Chick-sent-me-high-e] so much that he started researching it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Holistic<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Y\u2019all know my buddy Csikszentmihalyi? He\u2019s written at least a dozen books on his theory of \u2018flow\u2019. Since 1990 it\u2019s been used in schools, design, therapy \u2013 practically everywhere. It all started because Csikszentmihalyi was wondering why artists \u2013 painters especially \u2013 got so caught up in their work that they didn\u2019t even heed their body\u2019s need for food, water or even sleep![2]<\/a> They were having such a great experience, one that was so deeply and intrinsically rewarding, that they wouldn\u2019t even stop to use the loo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, after a bunch of research he managed to confirm his hypothesis, that yes, these creative people are having what he likes to term, an \u201coptimal experience.\u201d In fact they are achieving something that he decides to call \u201cflow.\u201d Now, what is flow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[T]he state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isn\u2019t that just happiness? Well, as luck would have it, my unpronounceable friend here also did 25 years of research on happiness, it was the grounding for his theory, and it\u2019s bad news bears, y\u2019all. Happiness is much harder to achieve than we first thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[H]appiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us cane come to being happy.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why don\u2019t you tell it like it is, mate!? He does say that we are able to experience pleasure and enjoyment \u2013 two very different things in his book. The easy-to-come-by one is short-lived and the harder to get one can permanently alter your consciousness. Of course, because that\u2019s our universe, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pleasure has little lasting impact on our overall well-being. It comes, it goes, and it changes nothing. But enjoyment? Well, by old mate\u2019s definition, enjoyment happens when we learn something, or change something inside ourselves, because it restructures our brain, and our brain likes it when we enrich it and especially when we create new order. Pleasure, forget it, but enjoyment? Enjoyment is what you see on the face of a little kid who is going around turning people\u2019s T-shirts up. It\u2019s affecting. It\u2019s memorable to the point that this<\/em><\/strong> body [point at self] is half way across the world sharing that enjoyment experience with a room full of people, because enjoyment keeps on giving. Enjoyment is optimal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Holistic<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So it\u2019s not happiness, but it is optimal<\/em>. That\u2019s gotta be good, yeah?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what live should be like.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hmm, interesting. Now, do you wanna know why? Well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[E]very flow activity, whether it involved competition, chance, or any other dimension of experience, had this in common: It provided a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting the person into a new reality. It pushed the person to higher levels of performance, and led to previously undreamed-of states of consciousness. In short, it transformed the self by making it more complex. In this growth of the self lies the key to flow activities.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating order in the brain is rewarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arright Asheville, you\u2019re telling me \u201cMelissa, you\u2019ve sold me: so what conditions do we need to fulfill for optimal experience?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirst, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing. Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours. The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"...sneaky<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Notice I highlighted skill in the summary? Will I ever to find a more skills-obsessed bunch than a room full or jewellers? You need to be really well versed (think the full 10,000 hours), and then your skills must be continually challenged so as not to become boring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He stresses in the text that your goals have to keep pace with your skill level – to keep the bar just outside your prior experience to push yourself towards flow rather than staying at control. He also says most learning is done in the arousal stage\u2026[8]<\/a> I have found that staying in flow requires me to push my work, to increase the complexity of the ideas I\u2019m encapsulating, and the difficulty of construction and finding new construction techniques, to keep myself striving to reach my goals. So far I have found that the more challenging the work, the bigger the rewards. And as for those rewards, this piece, nicknamed Cannon<\/em> and it’s friend, Tank<\/em>, featured in my Body Politic<\/em> exhibition earlier this year, have both just been purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As you might have been able to gather, I think that striving for optimal experience in the studio has made me, and the creative people I know, do great work. I\u2019d even say that the pursuit of \u2018flow\u2019 is the best case of what a creative career can look like, and it creates happy people. And Csikszentmihalyi agrees (or I agree with him, but who\u2019s counting?), as he spent years defining what makes flow by studying creative professionals before he moved onto finding how different careers and cultures experience it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the takeaway here is that while optimal experience creates order in the brain, your brain and body are part of that whole single meat unit, so you\u2019re going to need to work at it. This preparation – doing all the things that every other presenter is talking about this weekend \u2013 is necessary as most of us here are creative entrepreneurs. We rarely get to be like a Picasso or a Bobby Fischer and dismiss our real world problems to bask in the glory of a continuous flow state, like some kind of addict. To get into the studio and use all of our mental bandwidth on the task at hand takes effort, one has to be #ready<\/em><\/strong>. But, when you are, well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[O]ne of the most universal and distinctive features of optimal experience takes place; people become so involved in what they are doing that the activity becomes spontaneous, almost automatic; they stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[W]hile it lasts consciousness works smoothly, action follows action seamlessly. In normal life, we keep interrupting what we do with doubts and questions. \u201cWhy am I doing this? Should I perhaps be doing something else?\u201d Repeatedly we question the necessity of our actions, and evaluate critically the reasons for carrying them out. But in flow there is no need to reflect, because the action carries us forward, as if by magic.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now, who couldn\u2019t use some magic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know that I can offer you any more than that. Be good to your body, and go get yourselves some flow, y\u2019all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u201cA man possess nothing certainly save a brief loan of his own body\u201d \u2026 JB Cabell.\u201d[11]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All images from the slide show of Holistic Thinking: Interconnectivity In Jewels And Practice, a paper presented at the 2016 SNAGnext conference in Asheville by Melissa Cameron, with other image credits featured on the slides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– – –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> \u201cNeuroplasticity,\u201d Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia<\/em>, May 8, 2016, https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/w\/index.php?title=Neuroplasticity&oldid=719288180.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> \u201cFlow (Psychology),\u201d Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia<\/em>, April 1, 2016, https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/w\/index.php?title=Flow_(psychology)&oldid=712964548.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience<\/em> (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008) p4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, p2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid, p 03.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid, p74.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid, p49.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, the Secret to Happiness<\/em>, TED2004, 2004, https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=en.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, <\/em>p53.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a> Ibid, p54.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a> Ibid, p94.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holistic Thinking: Interconnectivity In Jewels And Practice, was presented at the 2016 SNAGnext conference, in Asheville, North Carolina on the 19th of May, 2016. This paper was my response to the SNAGnext theme of: Wellness and Holistic Practices – Exploring the importance of living a well rounded life to stay healthy emotionally, physically and creatively as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":5482,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7015","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7015"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9288,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7015\/revisions\/9288"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}