Abstract
In the present chapter I will describe and discuss the experience of flow occurring when professional artists create and learn. The unique findings are part of a larger study that looked at artistic creativity and aimed at describing the ways in which professional and widely recognised artists create, learn and organise their work. The methodological approach was qualitative and based on retrospective narratives of 22 high-achieving professional artists. When asked to describe the ways in which they create, these artists often replied by mentioning a positively felt state of deep concentration and calm. Flow, to them, seems to be at the same time a pre-requisite, a constitutive element and an effect of creative processes. Artistic creation happens in a state of deep concentration and self-forgetting and flow seems to have a specific purpose within artistic processes: triggering, facilitating and guiding the flow of creation.
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Chemi, T. (2016). The Experience of Flow in Artistic Creation. In: Harmat, L., Ørsted Andersen, F., Ullén, F., Wright, J., Sadlo, G. (eds) Flow Experience. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28634-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28634-1_3
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