Why creative expression is time travel - The Campfire vol. 46

connection through time

Hi everyone

Let me start with a question

How would you tell someone in the future who you were?

Gather round 🔥

One idea 🧠

Creativity is time travel

Back in 2019 I visited the National Gallery in London to see a special exhibition by the famous Spanish artist Jaoquin Sorolla.

I’m no art expert, but he’s particularly famous for the way he used light and water to depict the sun-drenched beaches and coastlines of his hometown Valencia.

My mum loves his paintings and is half Spanish, spending sweltering Summers in the south of Spain with her extended family in the 1980s.

His paintings conjure up joyful memories of beach life and quality time with her sisters.

Ok, so what?

'Running along the Beach, Valencia', 1908 © Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias.

Valencia Beach in the Morning Light, 1908

Whether it’s writing, painting, drawing, photography, film, video, stories, diaries or novels - expressing yourself in creative ways creates a channel from you to the future.

Through his paintings, Sorolla is saying ‘This is what I see, this is what I experienced and I’m trying to tell you about it’.

Reading fiction is exactly the same:

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”

Alan Bennett, The History Boys

Expressing how you see the world creates a legacy and shows future generations who you were and what was meaningful to you.

But it also enables future generations to see themselves in you too. Like my mum did with Sorolla’s paintings.

“The art of a people is a true mirror to their minds.”

Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India

Sorolla was born in the 1800s, pre-internet, pre-Brexit, and pre-Covid.

But his perspective of people and beach life travelled through time to my mum, in 2019, invoking emotions and memories.

A number of subscribers to the Campfire do amazing creative work, through art, businesses and initiatives in their communities.

They express what’s in the middle of their Venn diagram of experience, skills, interests, and personality traits. This, when passed down to future generations, will express who they are and what was meaningful to them.

I truly believe each of us has this unique sliver of gold stored up inside, waiting to get out.

Question is - when will you let it out?

Sorolla’s most famous painting - Sewing the sail

Reconnect 💀 > ✨

Practice being bored

Set an alarm and spend ten minutes looking out the window, inviting daydreams. See what happens when let your mind wander. I did it today and found it to be quite freeing!

Have a great weekend

Joseph