The Rarest Angels

// May 27th, 2010 // 6 Comments » // creativity, illustration, poetry

Parenting Is A Creative Act

// April 27th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // creative parent, creativity, curiosity, poetry

One of my favourite creative moments came just before the birth of our second son. My wife had been on bed rest for much of the second half of a very complicated pregnancy, and there were a few scares involving rushed trips to the hospital towards the end. Our oldest son had just turned three and was pretty freaked out by all of this.

We were playing in the yard and talking about how he didn’t want us to leave him to go to the hospital when his brother was born. At the time, one of his favourite toys was a Spiderman ball. So we got the sidewalk chalk and I drew a huge version of the Superhero on the driveway right by our front door, and told Finn that Spiderman was here to protect him.

Finn still had a hard time with the birth and the settling in of the new baby. The drawing helped at least a little, and he was happy to have it there. But beyond any talismanic protection Spiderman offered, the real value in this moment, at least for me, was that for a moment he knew that I was trying to understand what he was going through and doing something about that.

Creativity is much more than coming up with a great idea, or completing a piece of art. It infuses the way we walk in the world. Do we live as fully present as possible,in a way that embraces curiosity, imagination, and a sense of wonder at our surroundings?

Parenting is the ultimate creative act. It’s a wild place to be. You get to witness the creative energy streaming out of young children, as they explore the world and process it in the most amazing and unpredictable ways. What a joy to watch and participate in that!

But being a parent can, at times, feel like being stuck in the most uncreative place in the world. Where you’re stressed out, sleep deprived, shuffling from demand to demand like a zombie. You start wondering whether you’ll ever get some space just to be yourself again. Or if your creative days may be over.

As parents and creative people these are the two poles we swing between. But there are ways that we can allow the spirit of creativity to be continuously present, and even make it a haven in a chaotic life.

Commit! (to not doing your art)

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This is the one that makes all the difference to me. If I’m minding the boys and racing around making bottles, picking up toys, and fetching snacks while trying to work out an illustration or blog post in my head, all I end up doing is to make myself intensely frustrated. And resentful.

When I let go of my creative goals and commit fully to the fact that this is just Dad-time, then things get much easier. Just dropping the need to do my own thing (which would never happen anyway) relieves me of a huge amount of stress and frustration.

Something that really helps here is realizing that letting go of my creative goals means simply loosening my grip, not throwing them away.

Over time I’m really coming to trust in the wisdom of my unconscious mind. When I have a block of time where I’m looking after the boys I try to set a creative intention for my subconscious. If my next blog post is on parenting and creativity, I’ll just pop a simple question in like, what themes should I explore for that post? Then I let go and trust that something, no matter how small, will be bubbling away down there ready for me to retrieve when I have some writing time.

This allows me to be more fully present with the boys and not half-there to them while sorting out ideas. For me, being split like that guarantees this will be a day where I suck at both parenting and creating.

Surf Your Child’s Creative Energy

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Children have a lot to teach us about living creatively. Dinosaurs happen to be a big thing in our house. My son has corrected me, and I now understand that that they are not actually extinct, but very much alive. And, in fact, they live in our garden.

I’ve been on a number of dinosaur hunts with our older son and it’s great to walk around the garden trying to see things from his perspective. Puddles become Triceratops footprints, our cedar tree’s scattered twigs become fossilised dinosaur bones.

The world becomes larger as I crouch down to see bushes, rocks and tress from the perspective of a four year old. The world becomes more magical and alive as I drop my weary notions about dinosaurs and participate in a world where the ground still shakes with their every step.

Recalibrate Your Relationship to Time

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A few years ago I was consistently spending at least 2-3 hours a day on writing poetry. I had plenty of time to read books of poetry, and books on poetry, and got to hang out and participate on poetry forums. Add to this well many hours spent sketching and daydreaming, occasional visits to art galleries. I had all the creative time in the world.

I’m glad I had that too. I’m hoping one day to have that kind of luxury again.

But, now I have to make the most of every second I get. I’ve learned to work in 25 minute increments. Where I used to allow myself outrageous periods of incubation time, now I just snatch whatever moments I can. The surprising result is, I’m much more decisive an artist than I was a few years ago, and can feel myself sharpening up creatively.

Be Kind To Yourself

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While training to be a Creativity Coach, the first thing I was taught was to meet others where they’re at. The second thing was to practice self coaching. This involves asking a lot of questions of myself:

Can I meet myself where I’m at? Which of my creative goals are realistic right now? What small thing can I do to build some creating time for myself? What things I can prioritise? Do I have the support I need?

Most importantly can I be kind to myself? Even in simple ways like negotiating breaks with my wife, allowing myself a hot shower, clean clothes, healthy foods each day. (I’ve let all three of these slide by on too many occasions)

*****

I gladly chose to be a husband and a parent and this is my life’s major creative project. Even though some difficulties arise with this path, every single day I get swept up in the joy and privilege of seeing my two beautiful sons grow, and take part in helping them to shape their lives.

What can be more creative than that?

*****

If there are parents reading this I’d love to hear what you do to maintain your creative life as you raise your children. What difficulties do you face? What great successes have you had?

5 Unhelpful Questions For Your New Creative Project

// January 26th, 2010 // 8 Comments » // creativity, curiosity, Uncategorized

At the start of a new creative project do you ever find yourself facing down a barrage of shaky thoughts designed to prevent you from even beginning?

I certainly do. Sometimes the starting line can feel like the finishing line where, just as one last burst of energy is required to break the tape at the end of the race, a similar burst of energy is often required just to break self imposed barriers at the start of a creative journey.

These barriers often appear as questions, which is a big clue: it’s almost as if they’re designed to divert me from creative action and send me elsewhere looking for the magic answer that will make things go smoothly.

Here is a small selection of those questions from my head:

1. Do I Have Everything I Need?

Possibly the sneakiest question, and often the first to come up for me.

Here’s where the part of me that’s scared to create offers to ‘help’ by planting a doubtful seed which gives the option of ‘preparing’ rather than ‘creating’.

It’s sneaky, because sometimes we do need to gather a few things, research, prepare ourselves before we sit down to create.

But more often we need to just sit down and write/draw/sing/strum/move–whatever the action is that moves us into our creative project.

And if we don’t have everything we need? I’m often surprised when caught without my note book or preferred art supplies at how innovative I can be on the spot.

I’ve written snatches of poetry on napkins, sketched with coffee and fingers, made impromptu toys for my sons with cardboard boxes, formula tins. I’ve seen amazing Aboriginal cave art in Australia that was accomplished with sticks, spit, and crushed rock.

2. OMG! Where Did I Put The Map?

That fearful part really wants you to lay the path out exactly, wants to know where this is all leading. Because if the distance from point A to point B is comprehensively mapped out and all the dragons are banished to the edge of the page then nothing scary (ie: creative) can happen.

True creativity is always about discovering something new, no matter how incremental that discovery may be. If that newness is missing, then nothing has been created.

Needing to know the exact layout of the terrain means eliminating any risk of tripping over the unknown. Safe, but definitely not creative.

I think this is why planning, or having an exhaustive outline for a creative project is so tempting–it gives a sense of security. But writing an outline or hanging onto a predetermined plan for your project shuts out opportunities for new learning and creative growth.

It’s O.K. to have a sense of where you might want to go, but more important than that is a willingness to go where the creative project asks you to go.

If you’re surprised and thrilled by where your art takes you, then your reader/viewer/listener is more likely to feel surprised and thrilled too.

3. Can I Do It As Well As They Did?

If I listened to that one every time it came up I’d be a grown man sitting in a crib. Unfortunately, I’ve listened a lot. It’s a pointless question, comparison is not the point of creativity. Creativity is.

The best antidote I’ve ever seen for this question was reading a Gary Larson collection (the ‘Far Side’ cartoonist) that had a brief history of his cartooning career. He showed some of his first cartoons that ran in local newspapers way before he took off. The drawings were crude and a bit amateurish, but you could see the seeds of his unique style and great sense of humour in them already.

The important thing wasn’t whether his cartoons were as skillful as a Charles Schulz, or as funny as Bill Watterson, it was whether or not he was creating his own unique viewpoint and style, at whatever level he was at, which is what eventually made his work seem so effortlessly brilliant.

4. Will Everybody Like It?

It’s the most natural thing in the world to want everybody to like something that’s important to you. You’re bravely putting yourself out there in an art-form you’ve come to love and want to work at.

But this is entirely the wrong question to be asking at the start of the process. Probably in the middle and end too, but especially at the beginning. It’s like setting the handbrake, bricking your wheels and slashing your tyres all at once. You’re guaranteed a fast trip nowhere.

I used to post a lot of poems up on poetry critiquing sites, I liked it when the poems got a good reception, but I always learned more when people let me know what didn’t work.

The best response I ever got was when a whole lot of people loved a poem I had posted and another significant group absolutely hated it. To me, the fact that people were strongly engaged with the poem, some of them to the point of being pissed off, was more important than what they thought of it.

5. Will It Be Perfect?

Um, no.

This question is rarely asked via an actual ‘voice’ in my head. It’s more of a visceral question in the form of a general unease, because I know it won’t be perfect and imagine all sorts of consequences: shame, ridicule, low grades, loss of status.

Of course it won’t be perfect. And that’s a good thing. If everything I created was perfect, creating art would be a sterile experience not worth pursuing.

Not only will my creation not be perfect, It’s pretty well destined to fail, at least partially. That’s a good thing too. Failure is the Vitamin F of creativity, it’s good for your heart and your eye, your bones and your soul.

*****

All of these questions seem to have my best intentions at heart, and in their own way they do. Taking creative action means putting myself out there, and I find that scary. At some level I want to be protected from that.

At the same time I want to be vigilant in keeping focus and diving in as deep as I can when I create. And that involves letting go of any expectations I might have for the end result.

The Pyjama-Clad Dragon Slayer

// December 22nd, 2009 // 4 Comments » // creativity, curiosity, poetry, reading

Flying

// October 12th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // illustration friday, poetry

FLY

This morning Maria clings to the boughs of the thick-limbed cedar

outside her house. Neighbours on their lawns look up, faces calm,

feet clamped to grass. She envies them: their solidity,

their white appliance weight, their children sand-bagged snug

across their hips. Her feet lift with the breeze. Her face strains

as the wind whips through her nightshirt. One slipper

spirals down to be thrashed by two chocolaty daschunds eager

to prove their worth. The fire truck arrives with ladders and hoses,

orders fly through megaphones as the women organise

a flannel gathering by the firemen. Maria, forgotten, lifts one finger,

then another. Lets her flesh untwine from the bark and floats

above the street, above green cubed yards filled with whirling women

and men moving in formation. She feels the air, fresh on her face, feels

weightlessness, feels herself lifted and carried away.