Chatting about Intuitive Art with Samuel T. Woodbury, Artist

Hi everybody,

Today I have a very special guest for you. It is my sweet husband Sam who is a talented photographer and an aspiring writer. He is often photographing my artwork and portraits for me. I feel really lucky that I can freely dig into a photographer's stash to illustrate my articles and to find reference materials. I enjoy when he tells me the stories he has written. They often have a magical element to them or are referring to past times. Let's ask Sam to tell us a bit more about himself, what intuition means to him and how it fits into his creative work if at all and where we can find out more about his work.

This is Sam skiing in Herrenberg, Germany, 2010, where we have lived for a few years.

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Hi there, My name is Samuel Todd Woodbury. I'm a writer and a photographer. I mostly write fiction, focusing on themes like growing up, learning moral lessons, or experimenting with magic in settings like the Pacific Northwest where I grew up, historic time periods like Ancient Rome or the Middle Ages, or fantasy realms. I love the idea of a magically enhanced and technologically retroactive, perhaps a "steampunk" or maybe "dieselpunk" version of our own world where magicians use their powers to propel trains and ships or to generate electrical power in an early twentieth century setting. I have always been fascinated with trains, ships, highways and transportation in general. I also love photographing nature, cities and everyday life. My photo inventory includes the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers in West Virginia, where we currently live. Before we have lived in Germany and Belgium. So I also have loads of photographs of the Alps in Germany, the North Sea in Belgium, and the diverse landscapes of mountains, deserts, and beaches in the Pacific Northwest.

"Cold November Sun", Seaside, Oregon 2010, Intuitive Photography

To me intuition is following an idea when I discover it rather than sticking to a prescribed outline or a plan. This can apply to exploring the world, to designing databases, or to a variety of other endeavors, including creativity. There still has to be a goal of sorts, because just random action without any purpose at all might not be all that desirable. Nevertheless intuition allows even the goal to change. It allows me to cut the tether from the map or the outline and just see what I might come across. To me intuition is an important component of artistic expression, because so much of what is created comes from within, from what I would call the heart or the soul. I don't know what exactly happens, just that when I get in touch with my "inner self" a lot of unplanned creativity flows forth. 

"Close-Up from a Bamboo Shoot in our Garden in Sint-Pieters-Kapelle, Belgium, 2014, Intuitive Photography"

In my photography I use my intuition by just seeing what is available when I visit a place, or simply in finding a place or a setting to make photographs. I try to follow the technical attributes of my camera, such as using the light meter, different lenses, or settings that might be more favorable to a particular setting, but I often find myself just trying things to see what happens, especially when composing a photo. Often I see something entirely different through my viewfinder than what I might see by just looking at a scene. Limiting my view to what will be framed in the image creates a completely different perspective, often one that I cannot see until the moment of pressing the shutter button. Also, just like traveling, many photo opportunities are discovered accidentally while out exploring. Sometimes I'm disappointed when I happen to come across a cool place without having my camera with me or I have run its battery down too far. The improvement of smart phone cameras in recent years has reduced this sort of problem. I actually use my iPhone 7 for photos a lot more than I used to with previous smartphones. But alas, they still are not a replacement for a good DSLR with a decent zoom lens, which is too bulky to carry around with me all the time.

"Sundown in the Flemish Countryside, Belgium, 2014, Intuitive Photography"

In writing I struggle with following the rules for plotting and creating characters or story outlines. All too often I spend hours creating plot summaries or drafting outlines only to have something entirely different come up. I cannot ignore that intuitive idea or urge because it takes on a life of its own and takes the project into an unplanned direction, and more importantly, because it is the essence of my creativity. Writing is often a large scale endeavor that cannot be viewed all at once, so some sort of plan or structure needs to be employed. But although this makes good sense, I am still compelled to at least temporarily abandon the structure while I am actually writing. This allows me to see where I might end up and this to me is creativity. So much of life is learned at the immediate occurrence or proximity when something is happening. However, eventually I have to structure the intuitively created pages into a story with a plot. But I feel that I have benefited from my intuitive creativity, rather than forcing myself to stick to the original preplanned idea. 

I also provided the photography for the articles Traveling to Avalon in Glastonbury and Intuitive Photography of Little Worlds in the Pollard Willows here on glowingroots.blogspot.com. You can always get in touch with me through my wife Rika at Glowing Roots.

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Thank you so much Sam for connecting with us and sharing your views on intuition in art.

If you too are creating uplifting art and you would like to be featured on Glowing Roots' blog, then please don't hesitate to contact me! You can read more about the technicalities of getting featured by clicking Getting Featured. Click Featuring Artists on Intuition and Intuitive Art to find out why I am offering other artist's a feature on my blog. You can find the stories of Glowing Roots' guests by clicking on the topic Featured Artists.

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Love,

Rika