Sometimes it's ok to stare...

"Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long."

- Pioneering US Photographer Walker Evans

Surround yourself with creative heroes!

We all need creative pioneers to "show us the way" and encourage us to believe what our creative lives can be like.

A great way to keep yourself inspired and creative is to surround yourself with your own creative heroes.

Now maybe you're very well connected and are owed a few favours, so you can call them all up in person and arrange a huge party...

But if not, surround your creative studio, office or workspace with pictures and objects that will remind you of the creative people that have inspired you in the past.

You could go further and stick up their pictures all over your house.

Then each time you go to the fridge, that picture of David Bowie will remind you to be experimental and bold in your work and continue to re-invent yourself creatively.

Or when you turn on your stereo, that Leonardo Da Vinci postcard will remind you of your own progress towards being a modern day Renaissance man or woman.

So, surround yourself with your creative heroes, and let it help you become a creative hero yourself...

Hollow habits

Sometimes we can find ourselves "going through the motions" of a certain habit or activity, without really knowing why we do it. We continue to do something we began years ago, which served a purpose then, but now seems pointless and futile. We've somehow lost track of our progress and now might need to "catch up with ourselves" again.

These "hollow habits" can be harmless, but others can take a significant negative toll on our outlook and attitude.

Some of the more obvious habits people often talk about involve smoking, drinking, and eating for example.

But what about more subtle habits than this?

For example chiding yourself or calling yourself names when something doesn't go quite as you expect?

Or going straight in and putting on the TV when you get home, before considering what else you might like to do?

The most difficult part of these hollow habits is that they sometimes are so subtle that we don't realise we're doing them.

Consider for a moment your life, and all the things you do without question, literally the things you do "just out of habit". What purpose do they serve, how do they positively contribute to your life? Are any of these now out of date and hollow? Artifacts from a previous incarnation of yourself, that's no longer relevant or accurate?

By first recognising and then replacing these hollow habits with ones that are more useful and beneficial to the person we are now, we can begin to catch up with ourselves as we are now, and be more authentic and at peace with ourselves in the way we live.

How closely are you really looking?

Designer Alan Fletcher, in his book "The Art of Looking Sideways", says the following -

"...we also only notice things which are directly relevant to our daily business. In consequence, we tend to reduce our environment to visual muzak - a perceptual symphony of shapes, colours and patterns. Blinkered by habit we glance around rather than look with acuity. In effect the eye sleeps until the mind wakes it with a question..."

How is this relevant to your life?

How many things of potential interest, stimulation and inspiration simply merge into the background collage of colour, rather than truly having an impact on you?

As an exercise, sit for 15-30 mins in a familiar position, maybe at your desk at work, in your study at home, somewhere you're very familiar with.

Take a pad of plain blank paper and a pencil and, beginning with a single object, start to sketch it on the page. Focus on the object in its surroundings, aim to re-create the dimensions as accurately as possible in your drawing, with the precision of a forensic scientist.

Gradually draw outwards into the surrounding environment, filling in more and more, one detail at a time, until you've drawn a representation of the scene in front of you.

Whether you're familiar with drawing or not, by embarking on this exercise, you will start to see the details in the objects around you everyday. Even if you don't think you can draw well, just try the exercise anyway and see what you notice.

Next time, tomorrow maybe, try drawing a different scene with the same focus and attention to each detail. Again, notice what you notice.

Do this every day for a week or two, as an act of discipline rather than of enjoyment, and notice at the end of this timeframe any changes in your general perception of your surrounding environment.

Inspiration can be found in the tiniest things and sometimes the most unlikely places. The more attuned you are, whatever your main artistic discipline, the more open you will be to receiving this inspiration. Extend this too to your other senses and really notice what's going on around you as you go about your daily life.

The true meaning of breaking free

If you were to ask yourself the question - "What would it be like to truly break free?" - what thoughts would come to mind?

What are the things that hold you back, the things that you are not free from now?

In terms of your creativity, what would it mean to be able to completely break free?

Brainstorm some ideas and see what comes out. You may be surprised at some of the concepts you have around "breaking free" and what it really does mean to you, and how simple it would be to start to act upon some of your perceived constraints...

The myth of boredom?

Even though many of us feel there aren't enough hours in the day, and that we don't have enough time, paradoxically, we may also spend large periods feeling "bored" and disconnected, not doing anything of particular value or interest.

How is this so? Well, one definition of being bored is simply avoiding doing something worthwhile.

It's not about being unable to think of something creative or meaningful to do, but more about avoiding these things, under the pretense that we have no ideas or inspiration.

So why do this? If we are apparently "bored", looking for some kind of meaningful experience, and we have a variety of these potentially available, why not just get on with them?

There can be many possible reasons. Some are listed below, along with suggestions as to how we can overcome them.

> Fear of starting some creative project that at present is full of promise and allure and excitement, that once started, may turn out differently than we expect, or disappoint us in some way.

To overcome - Have an attitude that creative work naturally evolves, and it's more important to follow this flow rather than force a project to be something it's not. Sometimes by letting something develop naturally, it will become far greater than we originally hoped for, even if it ends up becoming very different!

> Feeling there's not enough time. Although we have small pockets of time here and there, if we feel a particular creative project may take a large amount of time to complete, rather than break it down into small chunks and plan to do these one at a time, we simply view the whole project at once and feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, and therefore don't even begin.

To overcome - Break down a large project into manageable chunks or parts. Then allocate specific times to work on these parts, and be committed to this work. Regular, focused work over a period of time is often the best, and sometimes the only, way of approaching a large project.

> Fear or achieving something meaningful. Strangely as well as the more common fear of failure, we can often fear being successful in one of our creative projects. If we DID write an amazing novel and everyone loved it, and it sold very well, then what kind of expectation would be upon us THEN?

To overcome - Ask is it not better to have created one great piece of work that you're proud of than none at all? Focus on the creative work and what you aim to get from it. Creating for a particular market may involve certain compromises. Ask yourself honestly if you're happy to meet these, then follow the course of action that fits this best.


What other things stop YOU from creating? Are there common themes or patterns?

The more you can understand your creative process and the conditions that are most conducive for you to create, the better the quality, and possibly quantity, of your work will be.

Creative Think Tank

Some ideas come to us fully formed and just ready to be put into a creative piece of work or project.

More often though, we have fragments of ideas, that with time and attention can evolve into rich and wonderful forms. They might be a name for a new character in the novel you're writing, a colour to begin from in your next painting or a simple melody you could use in a new musical composition.

The speed and frequency of these thoughts and ideas though can be overwhelming and as a result many of the best ones can get lost in the maelstrom.

By having a "Creative Think Tank", we can let some of these ideas and thoughts have an incubation period and give them the chance to evolve into more full and complete ideas.

What could you use as your "Creative Think Tank"?

Maybe a notice board or whiteboard and post-it notes? Carry a notebook or pad of post-it notes around with you, then each time you have an idea, jot it down. When you get home, stick it up on your Creative Think Tank board and let it grow a little. This way you can also move ideas around and connect them, or add parts with new post-it notes. Or use different colour post-it notes for different projects or different types of idea.

Or maybe a simple notebook would work well for you? Carry it around with you and write down ideas as they come to you. You could develop ways of storing different types of ideas in different sections of the book. Or buy one of those multi-coloured pens and write each different type of idea in a different colour.

Or maybe an actual tank would work better for you? Get hold of an old fish tank and stick the ideas inside the glass or just throw them in and let them smoulder a little. When you need a new idea, just pluck a piece of paper from your tank and use that as a point to develop from.

Experiment and play around, see which works best for you, or invent a Creative Think Tank of your own.

Whichever you use, finding one that works for you can mean having a constant stream of interesting ideas and never letting a potentially amazing one slip away silently ever again!

Your own portable state-of-the-art creative studio

I very much believe in creativity in all things and as a way of life, whether in how you style your hair, cook a meal, arrange your furniture or dance at parties.

But there is a distinction between having this attitude of creativity in all things (see previous post on "holistic creativity") and actually settling down to work on specific creative projects.

Some projects may require specific equipment, tools and materials that need to be set up in one place, a studio of some kind.

But much of the time, we can write, draw and collect creative ideas in our very own state-of-the-art portable studios - OUR OWN HEADS!

What use is any studio without a creative input, someone to put the equipment and space to good use and create?

If we train ourselves to hold the idea that we have all the materials we need to be creative in our heads and hands, then wherever we are and whatever we're doing, even if we're miles from our regular creative studio or place of work, we can instantly put ourselves into a state of being creatively open and productive.

And this ties in with the "creativity in all things" attitude. The more we are open to being creative, and accepting that ideas will flow and develop at any time in our heads, the more easy it will become to be constantly creative and not be hindered by not being in the right place or in the right mood.

Practice this directly by taking a notebook to various places you go, and creating at random times of the day. Just take 5 minutes to stop, open your notebook and write, draw or sketch whatever ideas are in your mind at the time. The process is more important than the end product at this stage. The more you can do this, the more open your creative channels will be.

The added benefit is the more you practice, the easier you'll find it to produce consistently satisfying work in your major creative projects.

Holistic creativity - every part, in every way, at every opportunity

Some people create occasionally, every now and then, when their "muse" takes them.

If this works for you and intermittent creativity is all you want, then that's great.

But then there are others who create as a way of life.

For them, "being creative" is not a once-in-a-while activity, it's an ongoing state of being.

And to embrace this as fully as possible, adopting a holistic creativity approach can be highly beneficial.

The word "holistic" is defined as - "Emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts."

So applied to creativity, this can mean the importance of creating with EVERY part of yourself.

We can also extend this idea of "holistic creativity" to creating at every opportunity, creating in every area of your life and creating in every way possible.

If all parts and elements of yourself and your life are united in supporting and developing you as a creative being, then the sum total is a person even more creative than the sum of these different parts.

Think for a moment how YOU can be more creative in ways you haven't thought of until now...

What areas of your life can you apply your natural creativity to? Maybe there are areas you take for granted and haven't even considered how, by being more creative in your thinking and in your actions, you can improve them?

The more you become creative in a number of different ways, the easier and more natural it becomes to be creative.

By regularly exercising your creativity it will grow and flourish and effect all other areas of your life and being.

Relax! - 5 Ambient Classics

For those times when we're all a bit too uptight and fraught for whatever reason, just lie down, get your headphones and put on one of these beautifully calming pieces of music -

Brain Eno - Ambient 1/ Music for Airports

Probably the definitive ambient record by the man who invented the genre. First track - "1/1" - in particular is ambient perfection. (read more)

Labradford - Mi Media Naranja

Deep, eerie and otherworldy, yet at the same time comforting and utterly entrancing, the finest album from contemporary ambient pioneers Labradford. (read more)

Brian McBride - When The Detail Lost Its Freedom

Beautifully elegant and slow moving masterwork from erstwhile member of Stars of the Lid. (read more)

Susumu Yokota - The Boy and the Tree

Possibly the most truly ambient record here, weaves itself gently in and out of your subconscious in an un-intrusive yet hypnotic way. (read more)

Pauline Oliveros/ Stuart Dempster - Deep Listening

A minimal yet reverberating, majestic record, recorded with real instruments in a 14 foot deep cistern, its title couldn't be more apt. (read more)

That wide-eyed wonder feeling

When was the last time you approached and experienced something that wide-eyed wonder feeling?

The same kind of feeling a young child has the first time they watch an exciting movie in the cinema, visit a stage show, go to a theme park or see an elephant up close. Something that makes them utter a almost breathless "WOW!".

When we become adults, it's easy to become world-weary and view anything new with suspicion or cynicism, and always be conscious of how we're appearing to those around us.

But if we can recapture that child like wonder, and give ourselves up to the experience, truly let go of our inhibitions or fears and just experience as fully as possible, it's more often than not incredibly rewarding.

Cultivating our sense of curiosity and awe can help with this. Being curious enough to seek new creative experiences, people, events and outlets. And being open enough to genuinely let our jaws drop when something impresses us, and let it move or inspire us enough to have a lasting positive impact.

One good way of doing this is to start a course or class in something you've always been curious about but never got round to doing. Maybe it's improvisational acting, stand-up comedy, short film-making, gospel singing, or something else.

Choose something that brings up in you feelings of excitement and curiosity, and also a bit of trepidation and fear. Then let yourself get fully into the experience, trust the tutor/ teacher enough to commit to the course and give it your best shot, rather than making a half-hearted effort then complaining that you never really got into it.

Everyone there will be in a similar position to you, each of you there to learn, so use this to be more confident still, and as a chance to mix with people who share a similar interest or passion.

In all things you do, give yourself the greatest chance to enjoy each experience to the full and develop your senses of curiosity and awe.

Get that wide-eyed wonder feeling back in YOU!

Be a creative maverick

One dictionary definition of maverick is - "someone who exhibits great independence in thought and action".

It's through the great creative mavericks of history that we've evolved creatively as human beings. Sometimes an artist is so original and so influential that a whole wave or movement is created around them, and sometimes even a whole new creative medium is born.

Just take one creative form that most of us are familiar with - popular music.

What would it be like today without the past works of Elvis, Dylan, Bowie or Kraftwerk?

To become a world renowned creative maverick like this takes courage but also persistence, and some lucky breaks.

Just how many other artists have anonymously toiled away and created art of immense vision and originality, only for it never to be seen by anyone other than themselves and a few close contacts? Dozens? Hundreds? Tens of thousands?

And so, what's the significance of this to us as creators?

Well, of course, you don't have to be famous to be immensely creative. You don't even to be creating something that is totally and utterly new and innovative.

In fact, you can be a creative maverick in your own way by simply striving to always create something new and different from anything you've ever created before.

Constantly seek out different influences, be alive and awake, absorb everything and, next time you create, in whatever form it takes, make beautiful and unique new shapes.

So, if you're not already, start being a creative maverick today, and see what amazing journeys it takes YOU on...

Falling in love with your life

Are you in love with your life as it is right now?

Many of us can say that we love parts of our life, but then there are other parts we simply accept or tolerate.

Often we find ourselves blindly hurtling down paths in various areas of our lives without much thought, or without taking the time now and again to assess where we actually are, and whether or not we're heading where we want to be heading.

If you're not in love with your life, how would like it to be different? What would it take to for you completely and utterly fall in love with every part of your life?

Your life is a partner you're going to be with for the rest of your days. Doesn't it make sense to make that partner as lovable as you can?

We all have the choice to live as we wish. And we're all capable of being highly creative.

So choose one thing today one part of your life you're not happy with and use your abundant creativity to start coming up with the things you could do to get closer to where you want to be.

Once you you've got a long list, ask yourself - "And what else could I do?".

Ask this question again and again until you've exhausted all your ideas.

Then pick the one option that you're going to take and put it into action!

When the world stops...

Coming across this phrase - "when the world stops" - made me think about how this applies to us when we're in a burst of creativity and what's happening when it feels like the world's stopped around us.

Think of those occasions when, lost in an intense haze of creative activity, we lose track of time, of motion, even of who and where we are.

Ironically, despite feelings of being immersed and lost, often these are also the times when we're most aware of our senses and most clear and sure about what we're doing, why we're doing it and where we're heading.

These times when we're furthest from "the outside world" are the times when we're most ourselves, most focused, most true.

Of course these occasions are relatively short-lived and if they did last any longer, maybe they'd lose their impact and intensity anyway.

So consider this in your life. When have you been lost in creating and the world around you has stopped? And how can you take what you observe about these times and apply it to other parts of your life?

Creative machines

It's perhaps not the most elegant analogy to use, but we are all creative machines to an extent. Whatever your creative output, the fact that you are producing work at all means you have a that feature in common with a machine.

But what kind of machine are you?

Are you like a slick, lubricated and efficient production line producing results of a consistently high quality time and time again?

Maybe you're more like an erratic, patched up machine in need of maintenance, that produces sporadically great things but with a bit of love and attention could produce more and of a higher standard?

Maybe you're some other kind of machine altogether?

What about the wider creative environment you're in? What larger machine are you a part of, what do you contribute?

What other parts are there and how do they all interact to produce a final product or result? Is the output of this machine greater than the sum of its parts?

Maybe you're not a cog in this machine at all but more like the lubricant or the fuel that keeps it all working smoothly?

Following this analogy that we are all in some way a machine, and all part of a larger machine, maybe it can help us to look in different ways at how we can more productive, more efficient and more creative...

The number one expert in your life

When we're faced with a problem or issue we don't think we can handle or think is beyond us, often the obvious thing to do is call an expert.

Whether it's to fix a broken stereo or a broken arm, we seek the advice and treatment of the appropriate professional.

But what about when it comes to our lives, and more importantly, the role that creativity plays in our lives?

Ultimately, there is only one person who has been with you through good and bad, joy and sorrow, elation and despair. Only one person who knows what you love and what you loathe. Only one person who knows what inspires and excites you and what demotivates and depresses you.

That person is YOU.

So when it comes to knowing what is best for your creativity, only you know what works for you and what doesn't. The final choice rests with you.

Of course this doesn't mean we all have the answers to everything already, and available in an instant. But we have the resources to be able to seek out those answers.

And it doesn't mean just because you suddenly want to be a painter then instantly you'll become a great painter. But if that's what you truly want, you will find the resources, the people, the books, the courses, the materials, the energy and the commitment needed to be the best painter you can possibly be.

This may seem a daunting idea at first. But it's what is at the core of our ultimate creative freedom.

The sooner we realise that we are the number expert in our lives, the sooner we can get on with drawing upon that expertise and creating whatever we want...

A hundred days off

I was recently listening to a record called "A Hundred Days Off" by Underworld and the title made me think about what a hundred days off would actually mean and how it would be.

What would it mean to you to have a hundred days off? What would you not be doing, what would you be "off" from?

Possibly more importantly, what would you do with the time? How would it affect or improve your creative life? Where would you go? Who would you see? Who would you be?

When you think about "a hundred days off" do you instantly have a whole stream of creative ideas, projects and activities lined up waiting to be started on? If you do, maybe you could think about how you can integrate them into your day to day life as it is? If you don't you could be waiting the rest of your life for the right time to start them...

Or maybe you actually DO need to take a hundred days off.

Think about the different ways you could start to make this possible...

Floating Haiku Generator!

As a follow up to my previous post about the haiku form, here's a fun website that generates random haikus - Floating Haiku Generator.

Just click the "new" link to generate a new haiku each time!

Creating limitations to free yourself

When we talk of limitations, we generally think of negative things that restrict us in some way or prevent us from getting where we want to go.

But sometimes some self-imposed limitations can be very powerful in focusing our creativity.

To give an example, I compose music on my computer using various pieces of software. There's virtually nothing it can't do. And sometimes that's the problem, because every tiny last element of every track of a piece of music can be adjusted, it can feel overwhelming in knowing where to even start.

I remember the fun and enjoyment I had creating some of the earliest ambient compositions I did, probably some 7 or 8 years ago now. I used a PC with a microphone and simple wave editor, recorded a sound directly into it, cut it up a bit, changed the length, pitch etc, then simply played it on a loop and recorded the result on my Tascam Portastudio four track. Then found another sound, manipulated it again, recorded it on the Portastudio, etc until I had built up a complete composition.

(Part of the way a four track works is by using both stereo channels (left and right) of each side of the cassette and plays the resulting four tracks in a single direction. As an interesting by-product, with some careful recording, this enables you to overlay parts of your music in reverse with other parts in the forward direction.)

Anyway, the point here is the relatively limited features of the equipment I was using then, especially compared to what is widely available and affordable today, in a way actually made me MORE creative and I experimented with the equipment and pushed the boundaries to get new sounds and new compositions. The pieces I composed then are still some of my favourite I've done.

Another example is in writing, poetry especially. Whenever I used to get stuck or lacked inspiration for a larger piece of work, a very valuable exercise is to return to writing haikus.

(Click here and here for some haiku definitions).

Because haikus are a very ordered and specific form, to follow them correctly, a great deal of thought and application is required.

Each time I've returned to haikus I've found them incredibly rewarding once more and they're probably the single writing style that I've learnt most from.

So think about how this way of creating limitations to actually free yourself could apply to your creative projects. Maybe by introducing a few rules or guidelines, even if they're just to get you started, you can challenge and expand your own creativity...