Bruce Rolff
WHERE DOES CREATIVITY COME FROM?
I currently live in southern New Jersey USA. I lived most of my life in Northern New Jersey about a 30 minute drive from New York City.
I have been creating art since I was young. I grew up surrounded by artists. My brother and sister were both artists. My brother was the neighborhood guru and there were always many artistic types around. It was an interesting time and an interesting group of people to be around as a child.
As a teen I had a teacher who encouraged my artistic pursuits. I created metal sculptures and worked with clay. After high school I worked in clay and did mostly abstract paintings on paper with spray paint and pastels. But also worked some with acrylics. I later moved to photography. I then began using the computer to edit and manipulate my photos. Eventually I moved to creating my images from photos, 3D renderings, painting software. I’ve even done some computer coding to create elements for images.
I produce art because I am obsessed with creating art and have been since I was young. I work from waking to sleep, creating, most often every day. Sometimes I will work till I can no longer keep my eyes open. Sometimes even falling asleep while working. I love what I do and hope to be able to do it till my last days on earth.
As far as my process, I have an idea, I work to flesh it out and along the way new ideas come to me and I work to render those new ideas. Many times, after working for hours it is a snowball effect and the ideas come so fast and so many that I cannot complete them all. This is when I am most creative and innovative. I may be exhausted but also, I’m fully primed with creative juices flowing freely and excited about rendering the next idea.
I plan on continuing my work. I have several people who work with me helping me with my business selling my images. We are all working toward the goal of getting the work out there and spreading the word about the art. My plan is for us all to obtain this growth and for everyone that works with me to benefit. The sky is the limit. This could get huge for us.
As a child I was mostly a loner. The same for much of my adult life. I always felt different, like I just did not belong. Also, at a youthful age due to feeling out of place in the world I thought being an artist might be the life for me.
As I have matured I realized that I had a spiritual longing. I sometimes do feel as if someone is guiding me when I am creating. I have learned to listen and to follow it.
I often feel in my work that I am describing places I have been before. Places I’ve been before this world. One place I am trying to communicate in some of my works is a place of longing, a purgatory of almost comfortable aloneness. A cool, empty world of eternal sunset not without beauty or calmness but a lonely place.
I am inspired by dreams. I have a lot of dreams that are repetitive but only in the sense that they have similar themes. Many of them take place in a post-apocalyptic world. I am usually traveling to the western USA looking for some sanctuary.
In another dream alien visitors are arriving and revealing themselves with great powerful ships. In the dreams I am witnessing these ships in the sky. Imagine a huge monstrous vessel measuring hundreds of feet long maneuvering with tremendous power and speed but also with delicate control swinging one end of itself before you just feet from you and the ground. It’s a feeling of fear and presence of great power. Always it is imbued with a tremendous feeling of impending great importance, wonder and awe. I will take things from my dreams to use in my art. Of course, there are other themes but these are two of the most prominent.
For me creativity is a spiritual thing especially. It is a gift, both received and to give. It is a connection to a higher power. It is an expression of oneself but again also of a great creator. It is a communication. It’s an intellectual pursuit. It is an expression of feeling. It is resolution of a puzzle. It is the creation of a puzzle. It can be an answer or a question. Art is everything ...
