Accidental Creative

More on the Sigmoid

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this week in our creativity eCoaching community we are learning about progression through the four phases of artistic development. If you’re not familiar with them, they are:

1. Discovery, in which you start following your curiosity and discovering new skills.
2. Passive Imitation, in which you imitate your creative heroes.
3. Active Divergence, in which you begin to risk and experiment with your own style.
4. Uniqueness, which is not really a phase as much as a progression encompassing all of the previous three phases.

At the point of crisis, we need to develop new disciplines to take us to a new place creatively. This can require anything from a substantial change of habits to simply opening yourself to a new experience.

The reality is that skill can only carry you so far without discipline. Anyone who has been in the “creative pro” gig for long realizes that there come moments when we must take the risk of pursuing a new direction and have the humility to fail as we are growing.

Do you need to take a risk?

Creative Inversion and the Ham

There’s a great story I heard once. True or not? Who cares….

There was a woman who was preparing a ham for Thanksgiving Dinner. The entire family was gathered in the kitchen and a sister noticed that the woman chopped off both ends of the ham prior to putting it in the oven.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

“Well…I don’t know. That’s just the way mom always did it.”

Stumped, they both called their mother into the kitchen.

“Mom…why did you used to chop both ends of the ham off prior to putting it into the oven?” they asked.

“You know…I don’t know. That’s just the way your Grandpa used to do it.”

They called Grandpa into the kitchen.

“Grandpa…please help us. Why did you used to chop both ends of the ham off before you put it in the oven?”

Grandpa smiled.

“Well, when your Grandma and I were first married, we could only afford a small pot for cooking, so we had to chop off the ends of the ham to make it fit into the pot.”

WHAT new problems are you trying to solve with old methods? Are your assumptions limiting your creativity?

Audible.com

If you’re not already taking advantage of it, there’s a wealth of books and periodicals on creativity and the creative process available in audiobook format. I have been using Audible.com for a few years now and often find myself listening to more books each month than I read, essentially doubling my ability to stay up-to-date with current thinking on innovation and creativity. It’s a regular part of my creative rhythm. In addition to our eCoaching, it’s another great way to turn “down time” into “productive time.” Enjoy!

How do you get ideas?

One of the most difficult things for those who “create on demand” is filling the well so that there is always a reservoir from which to draw. Here is a fantastic article about the art of “ideaspotting.”

Hot off the forums…

One of our eCoaching members posted this entry in our community forums:

“My philosophy on filmmaking (applies to all artistic pursuits, but mine just happens to be film and directing.) If you make something (in my case a film) to please everybody, you don’t please anybody. As a filmmaker, or artist, or creative, you have to please yourself first. Those who only want to please cannot aspire to being artists. Being an artist has less to do with external criticism and judgements of whether what you do is good or bad than whether you did it to please yourself and your journey and path or only to please others and seek other’s approval.” (BTW…you can read more about RT’s work at his My Space site.)

This is a tough line for creative pros to walk. I agree with RT’s comment, and I simultaneously feel the tension of being paid to do a job by someone who is judging the work I do according to the standards of the organization. The trick is to not allow those expectations to paralyze us and snuff out our creative thermostat.

Thoughts?

Writing How-To’s

General advice about practical writing.

Advice on Writing

Top Tips for keeping your desk clean…

We’ve talked many times about workspace as a contributor to creative energy. Here’s a post from LifeClever about keeping your desktop clean and tidy.

10 tips for keeping your desk clean and tidy

New Disciplines Needed?

This week in our eCoaching community we are discussing growth through the four stages of artistic development and the point of crisis that many artists arrive at when they realize that their existing skills and methods are no longer sufficient to get them to the next level. This requires the formation of new disciplines in order to survive.

It is incredibly difficult in a knowledge work economy to take the time to develop new disciplines. Many of us think that stopping means getting off the ride, which means falling behind. However, I think that the most important think to realize is the “invisible standard” we are trying to meet is what keeps us in the same rut creatively.

We need to occasionally get “off the ride” in order to gain some perspective.

The Effect of Art

“Art is not only a form of action, it is a form of social action. For art is a type of communication, and when it enters the environment it produces its effects just as any other form of action does.” - Mark Rhothko, “The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art”
This is a strong statement and imposes a heavy burden on the artist. Art has not always been considered something to be wielded as a weapon. There was a time when art was simply a trade or craft like any other trade or craft. There were blacksmiths, bakers, artists, etc. Art was a part of everyday life, and was interwoven into the fabric of our existence. At some point, not very long ago in the scheme of things, we decided to round up all the art and put it behind locked doors to be seen only when we go out of our way or in photographs. The artist became a mysterious force that no one really understood, and as such the artist was forced to live a life of isolation.
The challenge for the artist is to find ways to bring art into everyday existence. The challenge is to push people to see things differently - to reveal the Reality behind the reality. To show everyone around us the detail that makes the greatness.
A form of social action? I’d say it’s more like a form of rescue. Artists are rescuing society from itself.

The Effect of Art (part two)

As you can see from my latest blog posts, I’m really on a kick right now regarding the effects of art and creativity on culture. Here’s a great quote I came across today:

“The messages of beauty through the senses, when combined with the responses of our reasoning intelligence, achieve meaning or significance for us. These messages lodge in our minds and memories.” - Luci Shaw

We are all being shaped and transformed by the art we experience. As a culture, the inherent danger in this is if we remove the qualifier of “the responses of our reasoning intelligence.” When we simply become “brokers” or art rather than being transformed by it, we cease to magnify and allow its effects. We gradually become numb to the reasonable shaping of our culture by its artists, and instead become mirrors reflecting its messages onto others without fully processing it ourselves. In this way, all of society becomes imitators, looking at each other and trying to gauge the meaning of great. We have lost our sense of wonder, and our sense of appreciation for the meaning behind the meaning.