May 11, 2011

Positive Signs #19 & 20

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism*, and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

When to use optimism. Not an absolute, unconditional optimism, learned optimism is a flexible optimism... if the cost of failure is high, optimism is the wrong strategy. On the other hand, if the cost of failure is low, use optimism. Martin E. P. Seligman, Learned Optimism.

Christine Wong Yap, Positive Sign #19 (When to Use Optimism), 2011; glitter pen with foil print on gridded vellum; 8.5 × 11 in./21.5 × 28 cm

The openness and sensitivity of creative individuals often exposes them to suffering and pain yet also a great deal of enjoyment. Pain, exposure, vulnerability, slights, anxieties, criticism, attacks, indifference. Autotelic activity, bliss, enjoyment. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity, 1966, 73

Christine Wong Yap, Positive Sign #20 (Suffering, Pain, Enjoyment), 2011; glitter and neon pen with foil print on gridded vellum; 8.5 × 11 in./21.5 × 28 cm

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.


Next Wednesday: Positive Signs #22 & 23 on explanatory style examples for artists.
See all Positive Signs to date.

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