Creativity is a puzzle
How do you combine all your pieces?
Photo by Vardan Papikyan on Unsplash
Do you consider yourself a creative person?
How about a creative thinker?
Where would you rate yourself on an imaginary creative spectrum?
How much of your daily life is guided by creativity and how much of the time are you on autopilot?
I love to explore how to foster a creative mindset. I think that my reluctance, and maybe yours, to engage regularly in creative pursuits has more to do with mindset than any other obstacles, like not enough materials, not enough space, not enough time, not enough clarity. So I’m always looking for hacks to energize my creative mindset.
Recently, my creative activities have been all across the board: sketching hands from reference photos, making a little doll with clay and twigs, and creating a paper collage hanging for my new grandnephew. I was feeling scattered and undisciplined. My trusted mentor, Carrie Brummer of ArtistStrong saw it differently. She offered me a mindset re-frame by classifying my many creative activities as doing the work of the creative process.
Her words made me see that everything I engage with is fodder for my creative muse: the pattern on the wallpaper in the hotel hallway where we spent Thanksgiving weekend this year; the touches of scarlet sun illuminating the edges of the clouds in the evening sky; the softly waving fields of phragmites; all of it is ephemera to be woven one way or another into my creative process.
For creative humans, life is a grand buffet of colors, shapes, lines, textures and patterns. We notice things in the environment that others pay no attention to. We capture ideas and turn them this way and that, playing with all the ways they might fit with other bits of inspiration that have flown in from every direction. This connecting of disparate bits is rather like putting together a puzzle. What fun would it be if you already knew how all the pieces fit together as soon as you opened the box?
The challenge is finding the pieces that fit together: Which connections fit? Which ones resonate? What looks right to me? What color is this piece and can I find that color in another piece? There is not really a logical progression to puzzle completion (at least, not the way I do it!). I follow my intuition, jumping from one area to another one, all in service of fitting pieces together. The creative process is very similar.
Creative is a puzzle to be solved. Here are some ideas about how to best combine your pieces!
Stay open.
Your creative muse wants you to be wide open and expansive like the sky. She prefers that you stay open to emerging possibilities, connections you haven’t even dreamed up yet! If you go into your creative space with an iron grip on how the whole process is going to work out, your creative muse will sit in a corner in a huff. That’s not really being creative, that’s just filling orders, which sounds kinda boring.
Approach with curiosity.
How do you feel when you say: “I don’t know yet”? Not knowing what’s next can be destabilizing. What happens when you turn away from the desire for certainty and approach with curiosity? Curiosity makes change feel safe by reframing uncertainty as an invitation, instead of a threat. It makes us feel good about the prospect of discovering something new.
Being curious about what will happen if you try this… is a totally different energy than thinking you’ll ruin your work by trying that…. Both scenarios cause uncertainty, but the different approaches evoke different responses in your brain. Curiosity elicits excitement while negative thinking stokes anxiety or avoidance.
Has anyone else walked away from a painting because they think the next step could ruin it? As one creative coach offered, if you already don’t like it, what’s the worst that could happen if you take the next step: You still won’t like it. Or maybe you will!
The quote that comes to mind when inviting you to ask questions is from poet Rainer Marie Rilke: “Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” But, I would add, not before making a lot of messy mistakes and taking loads of creative risks!
Release outcomes.
Carrie’s reflection also gave me permission to explore and try things out without needing to have “finished work” to share. Give yourself permission to play, to take creative risks, to try things just to see what happens and to make mistakes, without needing to share any of it. Share when you are ready, not because the algorithms are telling you that you’re behind. The algorithms aren’t the boss of us!
Failure is not fatal, it’s information.
As a product of the school system, I learned that failure was cause for shame. Making mistakes was sternly discouraged. But creativity is different. Creative attempts that turn out differently than you expected provide valuable information about how to approach the next time. It is not a verdict on your worth as a person. It is not a reason to quit creating. You may have heard that Thomas Edison found 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb. 10,000!! We could all use some of his persistence.
Creativity is a puzzle. How will you combine all your pieces? Will you do the same ole, same ole? Or will you be curious about how to make your next step in your creative process sizzle with excitement and novelty?
Come engage with your creative process at our next Creative Resistance session on Saturday, December 13th at 11:00 eastern. We will explore the opposing energies of a slow Solstice season and the holiday hustle and bustle. We will be painting a silent night, whatever that looks like to you! Join us?
