Advertising News South Africa

The beautiful yin-yang chaos of collaboration in creativity

Artist, maker and activator Chris Auret led attendees of the September Creative Mornings Cape Town session through "collaborative art experiment", effectively an interactive process of seeing the effects of working together to make order of chaos in creativity.
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"TAKE nothing but CARE” (2018) _______________________________ My first mural of the year and my second largest piece to date (although it’s the longest I’ve painted on one work; 5 days). I was asked by Sasol in Vaalpark (an area just south of Joburg) to brighten up their space with some wall art. The brief? Nothing really, other than that! I can’t explain how nice it is as an artist to receive that kind of free reign. My concept came in the form of a message to those coming and going. With this branch specifically prizing themselves on trying to be sustainable, with the use of solar power and green energy, etc, the line "Take Care” came to mind and organically transformed itself with the added “nothing but”… becoming a simple wish for the world, blown out into the universe, inspired by nature. Thank you to @shanijudes for getting me onto this wall and for all your work behind the scenes :) Thank you to Jordaan from Sasol for believing in the disruption of a space for benefits beyond advertising and for the full creative freedom. It’s so appreciated! #AuReT #streetart #joburg #publicart #nature #sasol #chrisauret

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On Friday, 28 September 2018, Friends of Design hosted the latest monthly Creative Mornings Cape Town session.

Told to bring our favourite 'mark-making device' along with us, whether it was a pen, crayon or even ink, we were intrigued to find blank paper plates on the seats in Friends of Design’s talk space. These weren’t for the vegan doughnuts provided by That Doughnut Guy – though we did hear that the Creative Mornings Cape Town meetings will soon include a doughnut wall.

Rather, we were meant to mark our paper plates according to how we’d ticked our icebreaker name tags, indicating that we either bring order to the chaos or chaos to the order.

A show of hands had this at a fairly even 50/50 split. Before the morning’s speaker began, the session started with a quick morning stretch and reveal that 180 cities had attended the Creative Mornings global summit, which takes place every two years, in New York.

Described as a ‘Creative Mornings session on steroids’, it featured everything from marching bands to balloons, and will result in exciting changes to the usual running of Creative Mornings' sessions going forward.

Fighting order, turning to chaos

Elaborating on the theme of chaos in creativity, Auret stretched and did a few turns at the front of the room before introducing himself and sharing a bit of his life story, as he calls himself: “A walking example of chaos and collaboration.”

Auret shared that when he was first approached to present a talk on the topic at the Creative Mornings' session, he was excited, then he thought he should turn it down as he was too busy, and then he thought he simply had to it.

Auret says too much stress is placed on creating order by society, whereas we need a bit of chaos, too. It’s almost a yin-yang relationship.
Then, getting our creative juices flowing, Auret asked us all to close our eyes and connect through the unconscious web. We did some deep breathing, then expressed our feelings with our selected mark-making tools on our plates.

Over the course of the talk, we passed along our plates to the person on our right and effectively created order from the chaos, through collaboration.

Auret gave a disclaimer that he’s by no means a professional, and that his learnings are from his own experience, not from studying in the field. He said we are all artists in our own lives, and describes himself as childlike in his approach.

Much of his own process came from unlearning the structures put in place while he was at school, and rewiring those rules based on various choices. He left the ‘six days a week’ rigmarole of rugby to rather focus on art and design.

Then after leaving school, he faced another big choice – fine art school or the more structured, collaborative world of advertising?

He went for the latter as it seemed to offer a more secure future, despite really wanting to follow his passion for art. In doing collaborative art work on the side, Auret saw the magic of bouncing different perspectives off of your own.

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The collaboration of myself and the legend that is @marti_lund (@maakboards ) for the @wavescapesa Artboard Charity Auction is on tonight!. Big thank you to @wavescapesa for having us on board :) Also to @shanijudes for setting things into motion and @york.surf for the glassy finish! The Auction is at @jackblackbeer at 8pm Proceeds go towards NSRI, @wavesforchange @sharkspotters @thebeachco_op, @adaptivesurfingsouthafrica Big respect to the other artists involved in this one! Be sure to look out for the work by these amazing peoples: @jakeaikman @beezybailey @a_urbanski  @kirsten.sims @lizagrobler @brettmurrayza @lionelsmit @alexisaronson , Jenna Barbe, @colin_raymond_fitch and the @wsl tour team #wavescape #wavescapesa #Solly #painting #surfboard #surfboardart #maakboards #boardporn

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But Auret soon realised he was spending lots of time behind his desk, selling products he didn’t really believe in, and working with people he didn’t really resonate with – all the more sad as he was just 22-years-old at the time.

Then the travel bug bit, and Auret calls the result a “beautiful level of chaos”. He started blogging while on his three-month solo travels in London as a way of sharing his experiences.

On his return to SA, he soon found a job through LinkedIn – a solid ‘9 to 5’ – while also expressing himself creatively after-hours at an art studio.

Follow your passion

Auret’s next big turning point came from spending time in hospital after a stomach operation – this led to lots of introspection, and he finally left the world of advertising to focus on becoming an artist.

Since then, he’s branched out into large-scale, collaborative art and murals in the public space. Know that ‘cool giraffe’ mural in Muizenberg? That’s Auret's.

Auret describes his painting style as ‘chaos’, as his process is to add colour and texture and form as he goes along. He works with different mediums and sometimes peels paint off the palette, as a way of consciously letting his subconscious take over.
Despite his successes, Auret says chaos and collaboration can be uncomfortable and even frustrating, especially at first. But the end result is so much more when you collaborate.
Illustrating this, by swapping the paper plates we were working on every few minutes, we were effectively using our personal skills to enhance what someone else had created. That’s collaborative chaos at its best – making something new and harmonious.

Stop, collaborate and listen

Auret also spoke of a few of his most recent projects, like #1000printsnofootprints, the Valhalla Afrikaburn long-house concept, and his current To We, From Me work.

It’s about creating collaboration and integrity between the ‘we’ and ‘me’ through poetry, movement, and more from his residency at Muizenberg's Imaginarium space.

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SKIN Cultures of the world; under water, on land, in the air, on white islands or born in the mountains of a no turning back: Life (the really, really, big picture) is not a tale of two worlds apart. Dream time into the Earth. To most people, flying. To us, it is a body under reconstruction. A man with a following is still killing thousands of children everyday. Never underestimate the importance of local knowledge. That may be as good as it gets. Alive - happily - long ago to go, an ancestor of the true capital of Hope. Sincerely, The Most Fitting End. .... An art process collage of a few hours, which started with the randomly divine word of SKIN, resulting in a message torn and cut straight from the golden horses mouth. A message to me, now a message to you, to be deciphered and unpacked carefully. I'd love to hear your interpretation! Feel free to comment. .... .... .... .... .... .... .... Inspired theraputic art process and pic by @emerge.space #artprocess #poetry #collage #skin #fromtheinsideart #creativeprocess #channeling

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Fear, judgement and ego are the biggest challenges to effective collaboration, and Auret added that communication and listening are key to effective collaboration, as is an element of compromise.

But as soon as you’re just listening, you’re no longer doing, so you need to get the balance right – there’s that yin-yang analogy again.

Follow Auret on ‏Twitter and Instagram for more on his collaborative work, and keep an eye on the ‏Creative Mornings Cape Town feed for their latest updates.

About Leigh Andrews

Leigh Andrews AKA the #MilkshakeQueen, is former Editor-in-Chief: Marketing & Media at Bizcommunity.com, with a passion for issues of diversity, inclusion and equality, and of course, gourmet food and drinks! She can be reached on Twitter at @Leigh_Andrews.
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