M300  

Art, Occupation and Play [i]

While considering art, affect and occupation, some further relationships between concepts have established themselves, which I have not so far discussed.  These are ‘art and culture’ and ‘play and creativity’, on which I will expand below.

In considering my drawing process, it interests me that I finish a series at its peak of aesthetic satisfaction; at the point where I might produce multiple ‘successes’ if I were to continue. This must be because the activity is about open-ended experimentation and play, and to reach a satisfactory conclusion ends the pleasure; there is no purpose and no stimulation in further continuing that series.

Art, Creativity and Culture.
Theresa Schmid writes in Promoting Health Through Creativity that our innate capacity for creativity and our innate need to express puts creativity into the category of ‘normal everyday tasks’, of which all human beings are capable, although some people make more effective use of their creativity than others. [ii]  Art must be an activity that arises from this innate capacity and need for creativity.

However, although creativity may be innate, art is a cultural activity and is not part of the ‘every day’.  We choose to do art for cultural reasons, and are influenced by what art stands for in society, and by our socially constructed values and psychology.  Despite the fact that many art-type activities are performed as part of the everyday, these are not considered to be ‘art’.  Cultural activities are structured through context, rules and expectations, and as a cultural activity the art process requires the intention to create ‘art’. 

While there may not be an ‘innate need' for art of itself, art is a cultural expression of our innate need for creative activity, through which we achieve social approval as well as satisfaction of the creative impulse.

Play, Creativity and Culture.  
Creativity is also an important element of play.  The term play however, is used for a wide range of activities including strongly goal-oriented games such as competitive sport or gambling, which are not necessarily creative or ‘playful’.  Most theoretical literature on play is found in child development psychology, but some of these concepts are also relevant to adult creative occupations including art, which I will address below.

Creativity is said to be facilitated by playful activity, and may be understood as a ‘playful attitude’.  Play in this sense can be defined as ‘an intrinsically motivated and self-directed activity that is experienced as pleasurable’ [iii], and words such as spontaneous, fun and enthusiasm describe what it feels like to play.  It is relatively free from externally-imposed rules or constraints, and occurs within its own limits of time and place, being separate from everyday reality  with internal rules and loose links between means and ends.  Play occurs only in an environment of familiarity and safety, with an absence of fear or anxiety, and is exploratory only in this limited sense.[iv] 

Play can potentially be part of any occupation since a ‘playful attitude’ may be ‘enfolded into work’[v] but creative activity for adults has a tendency to become productive, in the sense of economic or social value and social approval, which appears to contradict the non-goal oriented, or ‘autotelic’ (as end in itself ) nature of play.  However creative ideas and solutions in adult occupations often arise when not being directly addressed, by allowing a 'free play' of ideas rather than forcing a solution through focused, goal directed behaviour.  Activities may include ‘playing around’ with ideas or materials, which introduces a subliminal element to the process, creating new links between concepts through the relaxed spontaneity of play.  Adult play however, is more usually described as leisure - although leisure does not necessarily require a playful attitude.   Play for adults is generally considered to be of little importance or even unacceptable,[vi] and Freud certainly felt that adults do not play at all.  The creative arts are often considered a legitimate form of adult play which merely allows art to be viewed as a superfluous leisure activity in opposition to vital productive work.

Motivation.
At a superficial level, the terms ‘art’ and ‘play’ appear to be independent concepts with various common elements, but the discussion above suggests that both art and play are motivated by our innate need for creative occupation.  However if creativity is to be considered a need, the satisfaction of it must bestow some benefit or fulfil some purpose, and one then must ask what need is satisfied by creative occupations, and what motivates humans to pursue them.

Theories of motivation are generally grounded in the discourse of evolution and a biological understanding of humanity; which is associated with current scientific beliefs that all human behaviour must relate to survival needs.  Play, for example is considered a necessary part of child development, for the child’s physical and cognitive growth and social adaptation[vii].  There is minimal play literature relating to adult play because adults do not fit into this developmental model of play, but also due to what Sutton-Smith calls a puritanical denigration of play in intellectual terms.[viii]  This evolutionary understanding of humanity conversely extends to culture, where ‘occupation’ with its paid employment connotations is also commonly understood in survival terms, with the assumption that work is to satisfy our physiological needs of food and shelter, rather than any intrinsic occupational value - and that other life activities merely support this work-for-survival.[ix] 

Conclusions.
Perhaps one should conclude that any and all human activities have the potential to satisfy psychological (biological) needs, including occupations (‘work’) as discussed in a previous section; and play (of the ‘playful attitude’ variety), for both adults and children.  Those behaviours that appear dangerous, superfluous or trivial are perhaps not superfluous to survival needs, and should not be excluded to some maverick category outside logic or sense, but should be considered survival behaviour of different type; in the words of Paul Crowther (in the context of art), as ‘needs of self consciousness’, and necessary to ‘human ecology’. [x]

Finally, one could formulate a new definition of ‘art’ - as a culturally defined, socially sanctioned, goal-oriented form of creative, intrinsically motivated, self-actualising, adult play.

 Theories of motivation