Storm Townsend...a contemporary traditionalist(A clue into the behavior of creative thought) by Paul Henrickson, PhD. tm. 2014There are some thorny questions involved in creativity research

and some amazingly complicated structures and even worms wear crowns and don royal robes.One might ask the following: If nature can do all this on its own, why dont members of the human community do the same? Well, in a more modest way it does exactly that.One such member of that community, the London born Storm Diane Townsend and now a resident of Corrales, New Mexico does exactly that.

Let us first set the stage for a special kind of understanding that may be more imaginatively flexible than our usual mode of thinking to one that is, perhaps, more open and receiving . One that will allow us to turn an accidental blob into a crucifixion. It is, after all, the way one perceives that turns the trick of at first seeing a blob of paint and then, as if by magic,.....a crucifixion. This sort of thing is what Steven E. Kaufman calls experiential reality as opposed to a reality confirmable through various testing measures which ends up making reality validly real by a series of numbers and letters such as Co2...or is it CO2? and being what Clement Greenberg, in his lecture at Western Michigan University, termed taste.

is Now, having said the impossible and demonstrated the magic let us turn to the products of Storm Townsend and, perhaps a few others, to clarify even further what reality might really be and where it is.

From the expressions of awe and bewilderment on the childrens faces one might think one is watching the birth of an idea. For sure, what the children see is not what Storm Townsend sees ( this is most assuredly true if the end result of seeing takes place in the brain)and the satisfying delight Storm experiences in understanding her own especially created language, the occult language of the aesthetic, is evident.

The evidence of the childrens willingness to give all this new experience a try is also there. Additionally, all of this is also evidence of yet another dimension to consciousness. And this gives birth to the suspicion that there may be more to reality, what Steven E. Kaufman calls experiential reality than what is perceived...at the moment. One might hypothesise that there is a need, or, an impulse ,in man, to put mysteries into order and then, because man is often dissatisfied with the order he had created ...does the whole thing again. I do not know, but I suppose, this work to come from the period when Townsend was in Indonesia . Right from the very start it can be asserted that Townsends visual accuity and attention to detail of circumstances for these figures have produced an accurate representations of the young Indonesian female, the Indonesian dance forms and even, amusingly, the demurely provocative facial expressions when, it would appear that, the performers would like to check out the audiences reaction to their seductive dancing.So, already, it has been established that Townsen d has a realistic perspective on several measures of realism.All the above, being what they may,andd among it is the aesthetic organization of planes and ovoids which comprise the basic skeletal structure of the work...all the other is anecdotal, but, while still of interest, tells us little about how an artist thinks in terms of organization. It is, largely, the organozation of such visual events and their auxiliary characteristics which ultimately displays the message, the statement, or the point of view. In art, there are many of these.Above I underscored and highlighted the phrase which comprise the basic skeletal structure of the work in an efffort to shift the focus the readers attention from the subject matter of a work to its organization. My guess would be that despite the efforts of knowledgable art educators there may still be a significant percentage of the population believing that the the goodness or the badness of a work of art rests on the subject matter and that a painting of The Virgin Mary also had to be holy...as holy as its subject matter is thought to be. This shift of focus may be called a projection of affectional expectation an example of which may be seen in a recent video of a mother holding her infant in her arms as she gazes upon the work of a sculptor showing the bust of a nude female. Her child, a boy as it turned out, also notices the bust and leans forward from his nothers arms to suckle. The result was amusement for observers and profound dissapointment for the kid.This error of attribution in and among the religious communities still permates vast segments of the population of whatever the faith whether Catholic, Protestant, Budhist, Hindu. It represents the presence of the power of authority, and the dogma of obedience over the proper operations of mind. It is a very serious conceptual error to supose that an icon is holy because it depicts a subject that is thought holy. Transferring attributes is a conceptual error . ( Lorenzo Veneziano (attributed)

In a complex society, such as many are these days, a simpler, more direct and elementary form of communication is necessary to avoid what might be a disastrous conclusion. If, for example, in large international airports color coded paths to destinations within the airport had not clarifed for a clientel

of many and unshared languages where one should go and what was the most efficient way of getting there.The function of such an airport is to get people to where they need to be as quickly, directly and as safely as possible . The function of a work of art such as Townsends Indonesian dancers is much like the Indonesian dance itself, designed to arrest and to concentrate the attention of observers on certain visual and expectant delights which might, were such a performance ti take pkace in an airport lobby, very well, divert attention sufficiently to keep an obsevr from reaching the proper airline terminal. The point being that the organization of a work, an airport or an item of sculpture, finds its final form after consideration of its purpose.The art movement which strssed the idea of form following function reached its heigth several decades ago and developed in response to what had been, in some cases, the notion that for anything to be beautoful it had to be decorated.Evidence of the greatness of an artist is to be found in the manner inwhich he has organized the work and not in its story-telling subject matter although,atthis point I should probably mention Arthur Rackham was a notable exception.

Some illustrative examples apppear below: The UtopiansFigureKneeling FigureBut Townsend has also, presumably through her own personal exuberance, shown how an inanimate material such as bronze can be made very successfully to reveal movement and to penetrate space not unlike the way ballet dancers and other leaping creatures do. Space is an aspect of our environment with which the history of sculpture shows us man has had an increasingly vital concern. The Egyptians. Mesopotamian cultures and the early Greeks were aware of its potential in only a very limited way.There is another artist,Ivan Mestrovic, a generation earlier actually, who also worked (see below) with the seemingly disparate approaches to organiation, those approaches being 1) an exact record of the object being represented and 2) the organization of the elements of that object into a unifying geometric (or non-objective) shape. With Townsend these geometric shapes are actually more plastic and reformable than a strict geometry would allow. For example in The Utopians (above) the geometric shapes have a molded aspect to them that seems more friendly to and responsive to the organic forms of the figures. In the Figure to its right the rectangular formations created by the action of the figure seem to bend in response to imagined air currents and in The Kneeling Figure (below those two) the placements of the limbs of the figure appear to create a combination of interlocking triangles.It is this use of the triangle in conjunction with the very organic development of the bodies involved which tempts me to suggest an analogy between the very personal agonizing anxieties the individuals portrayed may be feeling for whatever the personal; reasons and the constraining nature of a triangle. In the two female figures shown the heads are intimately involved, almost inextricably entangled with trainagles created by the arms themselves and encapsulating the head where, after all, most anxiety finds a location. In the standing figure the knees , awkwardly nearly touching each other and in a position which would inhibit mobility also suggest a groinal emergency which, in its turn suggests an anxiety rooted in some erotic sensation.In JOB the two major traingles are formed by the position of body parts. The top triangle formed by the two hands and the nose, the bottom triangle by the knees and the feet. In the statue these triangles are seen as separate, but our culture, for some time now, has made us all quite familiar with the Star of David snd its association with Hebraic religious beliefs and as Job had been the subject of a contest between God and Lucifer over the question of Jobs constancy it seems not too far fetched an interpretation to suggest that Mestrovic may have so arranged it.The Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic had had some disturbing contacts with certain political elements Pieta at Notre Dame University

If there is anything distinguishing the work of Ivan Mestrovic it might be said to be the dualistic nature in the individual betwen hopeful epectations and and the disappointment inherent in reality producing in the indiviual the very compelling need to express the psychic agony. Compositionally, the elements making up this figure by Mestrovic may be said to have been inspired by Michelangelo da Merisis Dawn which, however, is not agonized.The agony felt by repressing response seems contained by the geometric confinement in the Head and Job but in the figure there seems to be no such containment and the figure is twisting out of shape not unlike, it seems, the body of John Merrick. What I should liketo indicate is that the agony Mestrovick may have felt regarding the social ambiance in CROATIA at the time may be< to some extent, correlated to the undoubted agony, mental, physical and social of John Merrick. Mestrovic, however, like other artists had been able to give some creative expression to these responses and, symbolically at least, been able to adjust imbalances Merrick, perhaps, had only been able to protest.In contrast, of course,Townsend while very much aware of postential sources of anxiety by and large in her work, expresses contentment with thehuman relations she encounters and exuberant joy seems to characterize the most intimate of these. Other directions bring us, as seems the customeof a large segment of English society, into the realm of the fanciful The reader may miss the relatively subtle suggestion that the fanciful characterizes the behaviors of politicians, but that is the kindest view I can express of a class of people who have forgotten what thir responsibilities are although lonesome Dave Cargo may have been an excpetion if the parameters were sufficiently narrow. While I am pleased that Townsendswork was recognized I have grave doubts that any of those involved had much of an idea of eher creative efforts...or cared.I have strong reservations about public relation photographs which tend to show the politicians doing favors and providing accolades to a member of the masses, but in this instance it does appear as though Townsend was quite able to hold her own.As for fantasy, and joie de vivre, as they French say, Townsend provides us the following:In these first six exampls Townend seems to originate from a conventional core idea and then , by some manipulation of an element suchas a position or a limb stretch it out from its normal sphere and into an into a world of improbabilities where people inhabit a sphere and talk to birds or streach limbs or fold body parts . It is the last of thefirst six which I, personally, have found rewarding and creatively fruitful. (For extended notes on this small work see discussion below under INFLUENCES) MmMINFLUENCESIt is clear that Townsend can work tight and loose calm and relaxed and exubrant and joyfull, and always translating these states of emotional response into controlled comprehensible statements, as in the first three examples above . She does have flights of fancy from time to time as in the botttom four, where a subject of her choosing, quite beyond but added to, or imposed upon, the originating subject,the original figure.The type of mental behavior, that is the flexibity involved in the finding of solutions to perceived problems and the variety of their application can be clearly seen in the above examples and are characteristic indicators of a creative approach to experience. MIND SETS AND FOCUSAs an indicator that this form of mind operation is characteristic of probably all creative artists I introduce the work of Umberto Boccioni The two works below by Umberto Boccioni dramatically illustrate the range of approaches and of interests a single artist may take in giving a factual expression to his motivations. , or to put it another way incarnatng his preoccupationsIn these instances we might say the mysterious appearances of light and movement rather than a portrait of a particular person (which it is as well) or a pattern on a flat surface (which it is as well). It might be more correct to say that light bouncing off a body and the multiple images of movement are two aspects of the same phenomenon ..The ephemera of vision. Now comes another worm in the can. The work of the Santa Clara Pueblo Indian Michel Naranjo is notably outstanding mainly because during the Vietnam war he lost his eyes. He has none. So from the time he was , probably his twenties, until now there could be no visual input to inform his work All his work must have had to have been accomplished through memory of sight and through feel. ...through touch. It is possible.of course, that he might have had informants who may have guided him here and there, but I have had no reports of such. What , therefore, is awesome in his work is that it is almost entirely based on tactile information and what memories may still function from the two decades he had sight.It suggests that there is a very active correspondence between the sense of touch and those parts of the brain that conjur images. In any event, for our purposes his work is very closely badsed on the goals of verisimilitude, that is, truth to appearance.Nude , or to put it another wat incaranatng his preoccupations Boccioni HorsesIf there is one unifying characteristic in the above two examples.thenudeand the horses, it is seen in the artists concern for the visual effect of the paint on the canvas.Otherwise the differences are more apparent for in the Nude the effect of light on human hair and flesh and the beautifully rendered back of the woman testify to Boccionis ability to observe.If we credit the artists sincereity of intent the observer is required to adjust his expectations of what a work of art should look like by considering that, at this time, many artists were cocerned with the appropriateness of expanding graphic representation by picturing movement. This Boccioni did in sculpture as well And as did the painter Marcel Duchamp (below).iDuchamp, FigureMoving from the supremacy of the object which is the subject of a painting to the supremacy of the painting itself over the alleged subject has not, in my awareness, been a concern of many persons commenting on art. It is, however,a vital subject to understand if a concern for what motivates the creative artist is a valid one.DISTINGUISHING DIFFERENCESBy way of a strong contrast in focus the very literal work of Malvina Hoffman (1885-1966) comes to mind. Her stated intent was, apparently, to make a sculptural record of various ethnic types which is,to say the very least, a very academic approach.Below are examples which are while admirable in both technical control and objective observation are devoid of much infused imagination.Hofmann American Indian Hoffman, East Indian Hoffman, Hoffman.AfricanTHE INEFFABLELight and movement as foci of graphic representation are selfimposed challenges very different indeed from the Hoffman goal of verisimilitude, or the exact representation of the subject. Light has been as an aspect of vision has been a subject for the painter for more than a century and a half. In fact it could be argues that MASACCIO (1401-1428)with his modeling of reality through the use of light and shade was very much in advance of his time. At this time, Boccionis time and before it could be said that it has become a standard aesthetic concern and `his superb nude is a testamony to the effort having achieved a high technical status.but, then, we know some artists pay little or no attention to it except that without light their work would go unseen. It is, therefore, on some level an indespensible factor in understanding the qualities of an art product The insubstantiality of light and its quality to reveal or to hide material objects continues to fascinate the artist. Howeverr not all are fascinated as I have been and Pierre Bonnard, as well, to extraordinary effectiveness. Now, on top of this lengthy discussion regarding the supremacy of structure over subject matter allow me to interject an item in possible opposition? In this case I know neither the artist, nor the originating subject matter but what appears is a dead girl frozen in a pile of icicles. It would be untrue, however, to assume that structure did not exist here for what is paramount in the execution of the work is a well-focused attention on the vusual qualities of the scene. What is most evident in this case is light, the light which creates a kind of reflective glare obscuring, in part, the details of the corpse. While there seems to be no structure in the sense of what we see in Townsends dancing Indonesian virgins there is certainly the discipline of reflected light being the major focus just as it had been in the following two works, one by myself, and one by Pierre Bonnard . In both these works the subject is not what object may exist within the frame but the fracturing of light, It is that which is the unifying structure in all these works.

If one considers the refracted light as the subject for a painting as opposed to the object being lit by the light then the object itself seems to disappear as a diret result of the amorphousness of light itself. Look at this painting by Oscar-Claude Monet of a river at sunset with smoking industrial stacks on the other bank where all material objects, the boats, the buildings even the water itself appear to disolve into the nothingness of refracted light.

Because I have chosen to discuss aspects of painting and aspects of sculpture should not be seen as a confusing deterrent to being able to focus on the real point which is that regardless of the medium, bronze or paint, it is the indiviual artists requirment to push the limits (expand theboundaries) of the probing analytical scalpel of his aesthetic. If, in this process, what we normally think of as the subject of the work disappears and what the artist causes to happen in his work is the major or only concern this situation could well be viewed as an opportunity rather than a liability. Subject matters tend to emerge out of the non-objective abstract.

Additionally, it might be helpfu to remember that the medium is only a vehicle. It is not an end in itself even if a traditional subject seems absent and only the physical characteristics of the medium are apparent there seems something extant in the action of the viewer with the object that encourrages an awareness of subject...or encourages us to make one up to satisfy or psychological need for closure. Now, in this regard it may e helpful to recall that psychologists claim that the creative mind delays closure for a longer period that the less creative mind. What this suggets, by implication, is that if there are differences in the amounts of data a mind is willing to accept, or absorb, that it would also be reasonalbe to suppose that even the most active of minds grasping for data wil, inevitably, leave some behind and that something , in turn, suggests an ocean full of creative potential. The implications are staggering.