WHAT IS THRESHOLD AND WHAT DO THE WORKSHOPS ACHIEVE?

The vision statement of Threshold is that “Art is living from imagination,” which says quite a lot. It says that Threshold is about art, but more specifically, that it is about art as a natural process.

In the workshops, we make art, but the art we make isn’t the kind you see in galleries or museums. That kind of art is almost always contrived in the sense that it reflects not so much the individual artist but the cultural context in which it was conceived. Also, the art that you see in galleries or museums is, quite necessarily, one-dimensional. What you see in galleries, for example, has to be commercially viable or it wouldn’t be there. Every other aspect is secondary. Likewise, art in museums is there because some arbiter of culture decided that it had either cultural or historical viability. Being prisoners of our culture, we define art according to pre-conceived notions of what art is.

In the workshops, I attempt to strip away some of those notions. The kind of art we do there should more appropriately be called “unencumbered self-expression.” By that, I mean art that is made after some of the parts of you that aren’t really you are put aside, at least temporarily. Does that make sense? What I’m talking about is art as a process of removing the layers of what or who you think you are, and then having the experience of getting to a more authentic you. So when you strip away some of your preconceived notions of art and remove a few of your masks to get to greater authenticity, we are then talking about art in the truest sense of the word. (One of the ways in which I define art is as a process of “mask removal.”)

So in this context, art reveals who we truly are. It defines us as human beings, and as unique human beings at that. Simply put, art is what we do, and what we have done since we became homo sapiens, some hundred thousand years ago. Consider the cave paintings of Chauvet Pon d’arc or Lascaux. Perhaps you can see where I’m going. The underlying principle of Threshold, and what I’m about personally, is that every human being is an artist, every single one of us. It’s inherent in every person, inherent in each of you. So, the work of Threshold is to help people discover that for themselves, and then have them use that knowledge to enhance their lives and the work they do in the world.

Also, I want to emphasize that I’m not talking about craft or talent here. Craft and talent can be learned or acquired. I’m talking about the kind of art that comes before any of that. Take, for example, the art that children make. Children are natural artists, exemplary artists. Art is a natural phenomenon, and children are instinctive in their approach to art. What I try to do in the workshops is to treat art-making exactly as children do—as a process of exploration, discovery, and experimentation. That’s important, so I’m going to repeat it. “Art is a process of exploration, discovery, and experimentation.”

Getting back to the question I posed—What is Threshold?—Threshold is about exploring and transforming your relationship to creativity. It is about changing the way you use your mind—including how you view and handle the perceived limitations and decisions you face daily, particularly in a work environment. And the primary way in which I encourage people to use their minds differently is to have them incorporate more imagery into their everyday thinking. I’ll talk more about imagery in a moment, but what each person does in the workshops is create a visual work on an artboard, tell a story or two or three, and do some writing. So, participants use imagery three ways—visually, verbally, and graphically.

At the end of a workshop, participants have:

• New or different or expanded relationships with their creative processes
• Tools to access creativity and abstract thinking, in effect, the conceptual mind
• Solutions or at least pathways to solutions for real issues

And the sort of issues that this work is most effective in addressing in businesses are such things as group synergy, greater individual and collaborative creativity, increased problem-solving abilities, and an enhanced organizational culture. The workshops often deal with very specific problems. For example, earlier this year I worked with a company on developing a new marketing strategy, specifically developing product tag lines. The bottom line is that people in touch with their creativity are more resourceful, more productive, and more fulfilled. And with these tools, just about any problem can be more effectively addressed.