Is the hotspot a myth?
Are there places in the world that are better for certain types of creativity, or is it possible to find community outside of noted centres of imagination: San Francisco, Paris, Tokyo, to name a few that come to mind when pause to I think.
I find when evaluating spectra of a thing, it helps to look for the opposite: if we are asking if hotspots for creativity exist, what is the opposite of that?
As I write this I am coming off of a temporary gig up in the northern parts of my province where I was even deeper into nowhere than I usually am. I was in a small rural community for a whole week and out of happenstance and curiosity I tried to figure out if I could buy some watercolour paints (I’d left mine at home.)
“You’d probably need to get something like that off Amazon.” The hotel receptionist suggested.
Imagine that, I thought to myself.
I personally got started in watercolour because I was in an art store and I impulse-purchased supplies. Then I took a local class. Then I found other people who could paint and I used them as inspiration.
My home city is hardly a hotspot for watercolour painting, but it is very telling to see what something looks like when it isn’t even a “spot” let alone a hotspot for a specific kind of creativity.
Leave a Thot