Tuesday, July 26, 2016
5 Things I’ve Learned About Creativity
The Creativity Post: I never planned to be a writer. In fact, it was something I actively avoided. As a publishing CEO, I felt it was important to steer clear of the creative process. When business side people start inserting themselves into creative work, it usually leads to trouble. So I focused on supporting other people’s creativity rather than pursuing my own.
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I think the most important point in this article is “dare to be crap”. That fear of failure and the fear that your work will never be good enough holds you back from everything. It holds you back from creating work and practicing the skills to ultimately perfecting whatever you are doing. Even as I’m writing this right now I’m afraid that my words aren’t even good enough. This fear is getting in my way of putting my thoughts out there and just daring to be creative. This fear of failure in my creative work is what I struggle with. I think the way to get past this is just to force myself to create and use my feelings and my experience to create a multitude of works: poems, art, photography, sound compositions. This goes with the point that was made in this article about just being creative every day, no matter the quantity or quality just the act of releasing creativity. This reinforces the point that Todd told us in the upholstery work shop that in order to really get in touch with your creativity you just have to do a little bit every day; carry a journal and write in it, sketch in it, just be creative in it.
I really love all the points that were brought up in this article, and the one that I can relate most closely with is the idea that the hardest part of any creative process is to start. I cannot count the many many times that I have sat down at a desk to write an essay, start designing a show, etc., and I have absolutely no idea what to really do. The point that comes after this one in the article is "dare to be crap", and it's true! As long as you can put something--anything--down on the page, chances are that crappy idea that you put down will help you come up with a better one, or even give you a jumping off point on which to morph that crappy idea into a good one. I also really liked the point that the article gave about how experience can sometimes be even more helpful in learning and in growing your own creativity than your physical art can be. I think this has become very evident to me in this CMU PreCollege process, because even though yes, I have been creating a lot of new work, the most important things I have learned are from the experiences I have had, sitting in class learning about the physics of a lift, how to deal with actors and crises as a stage manager, looking at new and unique pieces of art in Susan Tsu's class, and the list goes on and on and on.
We often assume that everything that creative people produce is perfect and amazing, but that is far from the truth. As a young person, I have found it hard to except that everything that you do will not be good. The steps given are very similar to the suggestions given in an article from earlier this month about perfectionism. I especially like the last suggestion: Dare to be Crap. We often believe that crap means that we are not good, but I believe that it is the opposite. There are many times when the most creative things come out of failure. I liked the example given about Pixar. We view Pixar as a group that produces amazingly creative work and has always done that, but it turns out that their original stuff was terrible. Creativity is not easy despite what some people think. It takes a lot of failure and help to reach a point where people will be proud of their work.
I definitely struggle to get started. Regardless of how much an idea makes sense in my mind, making it come to life is always challenging. I also agree that experiences make for better creativity. The more we have to pull from, the more options we have. The magic really starts to happen when we pull from many of those experiences to create a culmination of them. The most important part of this article is “dare to be crap.” I like what the article says about how everything you start will look like crap in comparison to past finished works. I feel that often, but have never been able to put it into words. Another phrase I like to use is “fail forward.” To me, failing forward means that I should not be afraid of making mistakes, and that it is better to try something and make a big mistake than to never try at all. And then you move forward.
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