Yet started to re-read "L'esthetique en question" from
Edmond Roudnitska. Read it 15 years ago and had forgotten everything. It is always good to re-read books like this one after a long time with amother perspective. A highly philospophical work with references of Platon, Kant, Etienne Souriau... a bit difficult for me, but I think I need time to digest, re-read and have a better understanding. I haven't finished the book yet and sure there will be new things to bring to my reflexion. I like the distinction between the "taste" judgement (basic I like/I don't like) and the "aesthetic" judgement (appreciation as a connaisseur). It seems to me that the aesthetic judgement when appreciating something beautiful brings more pleasure that the taste judgement.
I asked people around me what were their creative process.
- This all started with
Zippy, when we were having a coffee together. She just said : I need to write a song, I want it, I am ready for it. So I asked her : "What will be the song about?". She just answered : " I don't know, I have the words already, but I don't know what it will be about." I'll find out once the song is written! Mmmmmh Interesting!
- Emmanuel is an architect, I asked him whether when he started to work on a project he already had a clear picture of what he wanted to do. He said " No ways! When the project is coming from the customer, I collect all the data in the computer (mainly constraints regardimg the land, the weather, safety, technical issues...) and I look at them deeply, at some point one is winking and it is evident I have to go in this direction. I start a drawing and then I figure out that another one is winking and I have to redo my drawing. and so on until the deadline is coming and we have to present something consistent. The difficulty is to look for the evidence and follow it, not listen to the ego. That's why meditation helps me a lot Calm the ego! Experience shows that evidence makes the most beautiful buildings! I like the idea of shutting off your ego to reach beauty.
- Benoit is a sculptor. At the moment he is working on a bestiary. The creative process happens when he is drawing the sculpture. Hundreds of drawing are necessary to find the essence of the jaguar or of the shrimp. Sometimes he is locked, he needs to go to the zoo, watch more video to understand the animal. His sculptures goes to the essential : a few lines. He said that children can immediately see what the sculpture represents because their mind is more open and they don't have a finished concept of the animal. Once the drawing is finished, the sculpture is just a matter of dealing with the matter. He knows where he is going. The good sculpture should be nice whatever the proportions, whether you make it big or small. This is one of the criteria that the sculpture is good.
All these examples confirm my idea that when you start creating, you never know where you are going.
Edmond Roudnitska, creator perfumer of Diorissimo (DIOR), L'eau Sauvage (DIOR), Femme (Rochas) used to say that he had a clear form in mind before making a perfume and he could do it only with a pencil and a notebook.
In my creative process as a perfumer, I don't work as Edmond Roudnitska. I have an idea about a feeling I want to share, this gives me a blurred idea of what I want to do, I write a first draft with three to four ingredients. To write this formula I use my memories about the qualia of the ingredients, I use their properties like relative Odor Impact, tenacity. I make the formula, I smell it, I adjust. Hundreds of experiments are necessary.
Here comes my question of the day :
"Is it because I am not experienced enough, and I don't have a strong understanding of the materials that I don't have a vision about what my perfume will be and my creative process is different than Edmond's one?"
Or is it because their are different types of creative process as their are different types of researchers.
