Creative Authenticity

"To those engaged in making art, an authentic voice is the most crucial yet most difficult ability to come by. Why does so much conspire to hide what is ultimately the closest, simplest thing of all? Creative Authenticity outlines 16 principles that will help you peel back the fears, misconceptions, "shoulds" and confusion around courageous creative expression. You'll discover: you are more than creative enough; talent has little to do with your success; the van Gogh syndrome is one of the most destructive myths of what it takes to creative; the dance of avoidance upon arriving in the studio is inevitable- learn to see through it and begin; the necessity of finding a truthful relationship with your work so it feeds you, not torments you."--Publisher description.

For over thirty years, Sue Haynes has taught highly creative children who resist standardized learning and who are often mislabeled ADD and/or learning disabled. Through supporting their creative expression, she has developed an alternative lens through which she sees their unique strengths. Through this lens Sue sees, not disabled learners, but talented, intuitive individuals who exhibit a passion for learning what intrigues them and a drive to express their learning in creative ways. These learners are compelled to be true to their inner agendas and thus resist curriculums that lack personal relevance. Sue has discovered that creatively gifted learners, and indeed all learners, need the freedom and support to learn through intuitive knowing and creative expression in order to maximize their potential. Sue’s book about her theories and experiences,Creative Mavericks: Beacons of Authentic Learning, consists of three sections: Section One includes “Who is the Creatively Gifted Learner,” which explores the attributes of highly creative learners, and “Seeing Through a Different Lens: Facilitating the Creatively Gifted Learner” which describes her teaching; Section Two, “Heartsongs: The Struggles and Triumphs of Creatively Gifted Learners,” includes the stories of twelve individuals who share reflections on their schooling and the fruition of their creative empowerment; Section Three, “Implications of Education for Creatively Gifted Learners: Awakening Passion and Authenticity in All Learners,” further explores the conditions which foster learning empowerment through the reflections of nine innovative classroom teachers. These teachers reveal that the passion and creative expression so evident in highly creative learners are seeded within all learners and can be awakened by teaching which honors the uniqueness of each individual. Sue’s hope is that Creative Mavericks may inspire an exploration of teaching and learning that moves beyond the confines of standardized education and empowers our true potential.

This book presents a creative approach to the problem of individual authenticity. What is authenticity? What are its necessary conditions? How is an authentic self possible in society? What are the relationships of authenticity, morality, and happiness? The book examines a wide range of questions in Eastern and Western thought, to which it gives novel answers.

Open any other book on creativity, and you will hear the clichéd rallying cries of current creative culture: Be True to Yourself! Find Your Voice! Express Your Authentic Self! This book is different. This book will not tell you to “Be true to yourself,” but will implore you to “Humble yourself.” This book will not repeat the slogan, “Find your Voice,” but will ask you to consider how your moral weaknesses are inhibiting your creativity. Examining the current creative culture, The Humble Creative argues that creativity can easily become disordered by vices that Christianity has long understood, but most have forgotten; vices such as vainglory, envy, sloth, anger, lust of the eyes, greed, and pride. The Humble Creative integrates the long-held Christian understanding of moral vice with creativity, providing an accessible exploration of individual vices and their role in disordering creativity—ultimately offering exercises for moral and creative formation. Written in an accessible way, this book explores the stories of several individuals whose creativity have become disordered by vice, introducing the reader to the often overlooked relationship between the moral character of the creative and the successful pursuit of flourishing creativity.

The idea of authenticity - deliciously vague and as ubiquitous as Starbucks - has hit the spot in almost every sector of 21st-century life. But can we trust the authentic image of Nigel 'man-of-the-people' Farage, Sarah 'hockey mom' Palin or Gwyneth 'inner life' Paltrow? Are punk bands, distressed denim and rustic furniture really as spontaneous as people seem to think? Is bare-brick Shoreditch just one big authenticity scam? From motivational speakers to PR consultants, music entrepreneurs to devoted foodies, bearded hipsters to earnest YouTubers - and, yes, politicians too - 'authentic' has become the buzzword of our age. But, as Peter York has discovered, its meaning has changed and become corrupted: every advertising agency, micro-connoisseur and charlatan going has re-tooled the language of authenticity for our changing market and it is now practically impossible for us to differentiate between authentic and 'authentic'. Drawing on witty anecdotes and analysing various spheres of everyday life, Peter has set out to uncover the truth behind authenticity - the ultimate con of our generation.

Brands are everywhere. Branding is central to political campaigns and political protest movements; the alchemy of social media and self-branding creates overnight celebrities; the self-proclaimed “greening” of institutions and merchant goods is nearly universal. But while the practice of branding is typically understood as a tool of marketing, a method of attaching social meaning to a commodity as a way to make it more personally resonant with consumers, Sarah Banet-Weiser argues that in the contemporary era, brands are about culture as much as they are about economics. That, in fact, we live in a brand culture. Authentic™ maintains that branding has extended beyond a business model to become both reliant on, and reflective of, our most basic social and cultural relations. Further, these types of brand relationships have become cultural contexts for everyday living, individual identity, and personal relationships—what Banet-Weiser refers to as “brand cultures.” Distinct brand cultures, that at times overlap and compete with each other, are taken up in each chapter: the normalization of a feminized “self-brand” in social media, the brand culture of street art in urban spaces, religious brand cultures such as “New Age Spirituality” and “Prosperity Christianity,”and the culture of green branding and “shopping for change.” In a culture where graffiti artists loan their visions to both subway walls and department stores, buying a cup of “fair-trade” coffee is a political statement, and religion is mass-marketed on t-shirts, Banet-Weiser questions the distinction between what we understand as the “authentic” and branding practices. But brand cultures are also contradictory and potentially rife with unexpected possibilities, leading Authentic™ to articulate a politics of ambivalence, creating a lens through which we can see potential political possibilities within the new consumerism.

Learn to overcome artistic challenges, solve creative and professional dilemmas and develop your own sense of Authentic Creativity. Full of experiences, exercises, advice and observations from a seasoned visual arts professional, this book will help you discover the hidden potential in your creative intent, strategies and points of view.

This book uncovers the roots of authentic leadership through a detailed analysis of how philosophy and psychology are relevant for understanding leadership. It reinscribes virtue and integrity into leadership studies by way of key concepts which include; identity-formation, the narrative self, the importance of decision-making, and the philosophy of creativity. In an era when leadership integrity has come under serious attack from authoritarian leadership, and left and right- wing extremism, the ‘Philosophy of Authentic Leadership’ opposes all such forms by arguing for the pursuit of the common good, democratic rights, civic freedoms, and cosmopolitanism. This is a work of interest to students of leadership and political scientists alike.