creativity

February 10, 2015 by Kat

A Moment of Convergence

In an artistic life, there are moments when everything comes together: The subject you discover, the piece you create, the audience you find. They all converge and you tap into something special, creating a piece of art that resonates with others.

That happened last week with this piece, Stillness.

If you ask me, I won’t be able to tell you why this struck a chord. I’m not sure what it is about this image, compared to all of the others I’ve recently created, that connects. I was talking to a friend about it, and she tried to put it into words what resonated for her about this image, “It’s as if I saw something, really saw it, in a different way. You showed it to me that way.”

That sort of caught me off guard. Maybe I’d forgotten and needed to be reminded, but isn’t that what artists do? Artists show us the world with a different point of view. The best pieces of art are the ones that make you stop and think, or better yet, feel something.

It is awesome when that happens with something you create. You feel like you really connected with someone. Maybe tapped into something greater than yourself.

The hard part is, and maybe this is just me, I can’t do it on purpose. I can’t predict which of my work will make that connection. I create, and create, and create, and once in a while things converge. All I can do is that ongoing creation, following the direction my heart and the image wants to go, and the I let it go into the world and see the result.

The thing I do know… If you don’t do this kind or work — creating again and again, practicing, trying new things, and sometimes falling flat on your face — then you won’t ever find these beautiful moments of convergence.

And they, my friend, are totally worth it.

January 16, 2015 by Kat

What Makes Up “Creativity”

This morning I want to consider the definition of “creativity.” Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been talking here about how to facilitate creativity, through routines and deadlines, but what is “creativity” anyway? How do we know we are being creative vs. just filling time? I believe there are a few things that have to be in place to make an activity fit the “creative” name.

First off, creativity involves transforming something. Taking materials, ideas, whatever you’ve seen or learned elsewhere, and then putting something together in new ways.

Creativity involves transformation, making connections between previously disparate things.

I don’t believe being creative is “making something out of nothing,” but making something new out of what already existed before in pieces and parts. Whether that new thing is a painting or a meal or a novel, you can see that the pieces that make up the new thing — the paints, the ingredients, the words — existed before. The artist then put them together in a new way. This transformation is the first element of creativity, but it’s not the only element.

The next, and I believe vital, element of creativity is engagement and challenge. You have to be solving a new problem in order for creativity to be involved. You have to be actively thinking, working, and resolving as you move through the process. This doesn’t mean you have to be solving a new problem for humanity, but solving a problem that is new to you. A problem that engages your creativity.

If you are making something you’ve made before, time and time again, with no new element of challenge involved — that’s not creative. That’s following a recipe. “Take Thing X, combine it with Thing Y using process steps A, B, C.” If you can follow the steps to get a predictable outcome without problems along the way, that’s manufacturing. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, because accomplishing a finished piece involves skill and expertise, but it also doesn’t mean it’s creative. Creativity requires that there is some new challenge involved in the process of making something.

The element of challenge is one of the most important pieces of creativity.

It’s the challenge which keeps me learning and moving forward. It keeps me trying new things, seeking new ideas to add to the mix. It also helps explain why being merely productive is not enough for me creatively. Why I don’t stay in one place for too long with my art or my business or even my corporate job. Because once I’ve got something all figured out, once the process is in place and predictable, it not as fun anymore. It’s time to face new challenges, solve new problems, create new things.

In my art right now, I have lots of problems to solve. I still have so much to learn about mobile photography. I’m facing new challenges every day, in every piece I create. The image I’m sharing today is no exception. The tools are not always there or the way to achieve my vision is not straight forward. That’s perfect.

Combining existing elements in ways that require overcoming challenges, that’s what makes up “creativity” to me.

January 13, 2015 by Kat

Can you put Creativity on a Deadline?

Last week, we discussed what creativity craves. Between my experience and reader comments, we successfully debunked the myth that wide open, unstructured schedules are good for creativity. Creativity craves routines, along with a second element I didn’t talk about in last week’s post: Deadlines.

Love them or hate them, deadlines do make a difference in our creative productivity. Having a real date that something is due makes you use the time you have available to be creative. Having a routine builds on that, making the time you have available really clear.

I’ll share with you a very real example on what deadlines can do for your creativity, one I’m living right now: My book on iPhone photography.

My manuscript deadline is March 1, 2015. By March 1, the manuscript and all associated files, releases, etc. must be physically (not electronically) in the hands of the publisher in order to be on the Fall publishing schedule. March 1 is a Sunday, so my real deadline is Friday, February 27. Since the files must be mailed, I need to mail them out no later than the morning of February 25 to ensure they arrive on time. So my real deadline for finishing everything and having it packed up and ready to go is February 24.

Between now and February 24, I have six weekends left. Why do the weekends matter? That’s where the routine comes in. Because I work a full-time corporate job Monday-Friday, weekends are my only opportunity right now for extended stretches of time to work on the book. I could do it in snippets in other free time, but I’m reserving weekday mornings for creating new art and blogging (still have to keep things going here!) and weekday evenings for all of the other little things that have to get done (like framing work for upcoming exhibitions). So weekends it is.

With that in mind, I have mapped out a plan of work that gets me through to the deadline, with weekly goals spelled out. The first draft is done and last weekend I finalized all of the photo examples. Over the next couple of weeks I need to complete the first revision and create the more complicated figures, so I can have an edited copy complete with photo examples out to first readers by the end of the month. It’s a lot, but I can do it without stress if I stick to the plan. I’ve already warned my family – I’m busy every weekend until March 1!

So here’s the equation that comes out of my experience:

Deadline + Routine + Plan = Creative Success

The answer is yes, you can put creativity on a deadline. In fact, I’ve found I’m more creatively productive when I do. How about you?

November 13, 2014 by Kat

Creativity and Time

I’ve been on a remarkably even keel since the returning from the yoga retreat last weekend. It’s as if I rebooted. Reset everything to a new baseline. It’s wonderful.

It’s allowed me thoughtful space and given me new clarity. I’ve been thinking about how I’m spending my time. I’ve been pondering some little changes to focus myself back in on what’s important. Writing a book, for one. Evaluating what I want to tackle in 2015. And creating new work. Always, always creating new work.

I’ve been realizing a deep truth: As an artist, everything hinges on continual creation. Everything. Self-understanding, renewal, and growth all come from a creative practice. It’s in creating that I understand the direction I want to go. It’s through my artwork that I tease out the signals to follow. I don’t wait for inspiration and then create. I create and then I get insight. And so I create some more.

No matter what else is going on, creating has to be at the core. It has to be a priority for my time. The pace may change, but it can’t go away. If it does, eventually the fuel for everything else that swirls around the art I create… this blog and the book and the workshops and the art events… will slowly, quietly fade away. And you know what else will fade away? An important, even vital, connection to my heart and soul. The connection which provides understanding of who I am and the confidence to seek my own path, no matter the influences around me.

We forget this. Our culture tells us to do otherwise. It tells us to focus on all of the other things that require our time: Work and family and friends and commitments. Things beyond ourselves. Get the work done first, then have fun. Then, with your spare time and energy, with the dregs left over, only then can you create. Everything else, everyone else comes first.

That doesn’t work, for the artist. For the artist to have a thriving creative life, creating art has to be part of the priorities. It has to be the work. You have to give it your best time and energy, on a regular basis. You have to make the right choices for yourself, even if others aren’t happy with you.

So I renew the choice, for myself, to continue creating new work. I don’t do it because I need new images to share or to blog or to show or to sell. I do it because I’m not me if I’m not creating.

I’ve worked long and hard to figure out who I am amidst the clutter. I’m not going to let that knowledge or connection fade away.

October 14, 2014 by Kat

What’s in a Masterpiece?

In a recent interview for the Philomath Open Studios blog, I was asked this question: What, in your opinion, is the hardest step in creating a masterpiece?

That got me to thinking… What is a “masterpiece?” Have I ever created one?

I’m thinking a masterpiece is something that exemplifies the best of an artist’s work. A piece which reaches the height of communicating an artist’s vision. A piece that finds the perfect combination of subject, emotion and technique. Something that says, “This is who the artist is, or was, as an artist and as a person.”

If that’s the case, then can I really know if I’ve ever created a masterpiece? Or is that something for people to decide after I’m gone?

I don’t ever set out to create a masterpiece, that’s all I know right now. Can you imagine that kind of pressure? “Today, I’m going to create the best work of my career!” Let’s talk about a recipe for creative block.

I just try to keep creating. Sometimes what I finish is good. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes I know right away if it’s my best work, but more often it’s hindsight that helps me see which pieces are better than others. I can’t predict, in the throes of creating.

Which is good, I suppose, because otherwise I would get to the point of “knowing” that a piece was destined for the trash bin and just stop. What’s the point of creating something, if you know it’s not going anywhere? It’s better to not know at all.

That’s why we can’t tell if we’ve created a masterpiece. That’s why others decide that. We have to keep creating, without the voice in our head telling us, what’s good or not.

Have I ever created a masterpiece? Will I ever create one? I’m not worrying about that. I’m just taking life as an artist one day, one piece at a time.

PS – Twelve days to Philomath Open Studios! Mark your calendars for Oct 25/26 and Nov 1/2.

July 31, 2014 by Kat

Beauty in Repetition

As I photographed these flowers on my hike the other morning, I realized how much nature repeats itself. Just look at this field of flowers… Not one, not two, but flowers over and over again.

A field of flowers, repeated. Every year, at the same time. Every morning, the sun comes up again, repeating the cycle of night and day. It’s predictable, but always just a little bit different, and always beautiful.

So why do I, so much of the time, feel like I shouldn’t be repeating myself? The themes I write about, the subjects I photograph. There are times I think I should vary them more. That I’m not creative if it’s not entirely new every time.

But look at nature, it repeats. We rely on it.

It made me stop and realize: It’s a beautiful thing, when you repeat. If we did not repeat ourselves as artists, how would we find a voice and a style? If we did not revisit the same themes that inspire us, varying things a little bit every time, could we build a body of work that is cohesive? I’m not sure we could.

After spending the weekend at the art fair with my winter trees, I’ve started to create new work with summer trees. They are similar, yet different. I’m repeating myself, yet I’m not. It all works together.

Beauty in repetition. If nature can do it, so can I.

Tomorrow is the Photo-Heart Connection! Won’t you join us in finding your photograph with the strongest heart connection in July?

« Previous Page

Upcoming Events