(Book #35) Rollo May - The Courage To Create

Rollo May's 'Courage To Create', is another one of those books that has been sitting on the shelf for about ten years. I was expecting it to be along the same lines as 'Art & Fear', which it was, but it provided more of a psychological look at certain aspects of art and creativity as a part of human nature. I really connected with a few chapters in this book, but felt really detached from others. This was not so much about the content of what was written more than the format. There was very little flow between some of the ideas and it felt like a collection of essays rather than one cohesive book. Despite that, there was still some really compelling material in there, particularly about the notion of "encounter" as an act of creativity or a prelude to it. No matter what our medium is, when a person makes art they must grapple with an idea or have a moment of vision or clarity with an object, it is through this encounter that creation occurs; something new born into existence from a coupling of self and non self.

(Books #27 & #28) Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca - 'The Multiple Entrance' & 'The Hidden Infinities'

A couple weeks ago Jessica and I went the enormous Comic Con in San Diego. One of the less insane things to do at the convention is to check out the many booths of artists who are there to promote themselves and their artwork. While many of the artists focus on actual comics, some do more character and graphic design work. Most all of them are selling samples of their art in the form of prints, books, or sketchbooks and every time we go, we pick up a few. This year was no different and I ended up coming away with a couple small books by an artist I met there named Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca.

Vaca's work appealed to me because not only did I appreciate the gestural artwork, but also the photography and the variety of interspersed short stories. 'The Multiple Entrance' was a collection of abstractions of classic pieces from the Science Fiction, Mystery and Horror genres (ex. The Time Machine, Frankenstein, Edgar Allen Poe, etc). These "remixes", as he called them, were sometimes pastiches and sometimes twists on the old tale. Some of them were more recognizable than others, but all of them remained compelling to me to some degree. My biggest criticism about this book was that I wished some of the pieces could have been longer. While I appreciate "flash fiction", the abruptness with which some of them ended was a little overused and made some of the pieces feel more like exercises rather than short stories. Regardless, I still enjoyed reading the reimagined stories and appreciated the juxtaposed graphic work that went with them.

In a similar structure, The Hidden Infinities, placed digital imagery in context with Vaca's original sci-fi stories. The stories in this book also varied in length from a few sentences long to several pages. The imagery, while possibly more abstract than the other book, seemed to actually fit with the text fairly well, so much so that I began to wonder if the image inspired the text, or text inspired the image, or neither. The stories themselves were more chilling glimpses into other worlds and less about character development (Think 2001, not Star Trek).

All in all they were both worth checking out for me personally and could serve as good examples and resources for whenever I eventually decide to compile and distribute my own work.