A book on Mindful Creativity

Before I read Imagine: How Creativity Works, I was about half-way through a book on creativity told from a very different perspective. I came back to On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Ellen J. Langer after finishing Lehrer's book and am still really enjoying it!

Langer is a psychology professor and a painter. The book begins with the story of how she became an artist and her references are often personal, and it reads more like a self-help book, which I like. Each chapter and sections of chapters begin with a quote, and it's segmented into easily digestible sections. The title led me to think this was going to be a book about how to become an artist, to which my response is: I already am an artist so why do I need this book? But that is deceiving. It would be more accurate to say that it's a book about mindfulness for creative people.

I think the parts I have enjoyed the most are dealing with evaluation, comparison and criticism. For example, I really grabbed on to this quote on page 59:

"The important thing is never to let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries; to continue steadfastly on one's way without letting oneself either be defeated by failure or diverted by applause." - Gustav Mahler

Langer goes on to talk about how compliments can act as confirmation of the artist's worth, but that is just as dangerous as not receiving compliments or winning awards. Later in the book she comes back to evaluation in the chapter on social comparison. I really liked this part:

"Social comparing is one way for us to gain validation. But there are other ways that are not so costly. Because a work of mindful art has so much of the person in it, it is no wonder that artists are eager to show their work and are so disappointed if it does not receive approval. It is hard at that point to separate oneself from the work." Langer, 142

She goes on to suggest that we consider asking better questions than "do you like it?" to learn more about how others see our work. Some of her suggestions include:

What does it mean to you?
Would you have added something (or left something out), and why?
What does this tell you about me?

The book as a whole is an encouraging lesson, one that all art school dropouts should read, that anyone who creates from the soul should read. It's so easy to talk yourself out of creating, so why not let someone who's been there talk you into creating? For me the take-away is: Don't be afraid to create. Create for yourself and don't be discouraged by others. They may not understand the work in the same way you do and that is ok.

If you are stuck in a mental block, trying to free yourself to be more creative, as I often do, search out and try keeping a list of sources for inspiration and encouragement. I keep a list of books/talks/etc to encourage myself to just go out there and create. You can find my haphazard study of creativity on this page. Now what are you waiting for? Go create something! Do it for you!


(If you are one of those people who were frustrated that Jonah Lehrer failed to cite sources in Imagine, and the fact that it used some of the same studies and stories as Malcom Gladwell's Blink, you will be pleased that Langer references her material and the bulk of the stories shared come from her own experiences as a psychologist.)

Imagine - A book worth reading!

Just imagine for a minute that there's a book out there that combines the wisdom of multiple creators/artists/entrepreneurs/engineers/etc with the knowledge of neurologists and scientists, simply explaining what it takes to be creative and where insights come from.

Jonah Lehrer's new book Imagine: How Creativity Works does just that. There are many ways to create, but perhaps if we understand where our brains and creativity intersect we can become more creative. Lehrer explains how insight and grit both lead to innovation and how we can work alone or together to make more and better things.

"I think people need to be reminded that creativity is a verb, a very time-consuming verb. It's about taking an idea in your head, and transforming that idea into something real. And that's always going to be a long and difficult process. If you're doing it right, it's going to feel like work." - Milton Glaser quote within Imagine, pg 69

I loved reading this book. It was inspirational, interesting and full of great takeaways.

"Knowledge can be a subtle curse. When we learn about the world, we also learn all the reasons why the world cannot be changed. We get used to our failures and imperfections. We become numb to the possibilities of something new. In fact, the only way to remain creative over time - to not be undone by our expertise - is to experiment with ignorance, to stare at things we don't fully understand." - Jonah Lehrer, Imagine, pg135

And now the 99% has posted the talk that Lehrer gave at their annual conference:

Jonah Lehrer: The Origins of Creative Insight & Why You Need Grit from 99% on Vimeo.

"It is the human friction that creates the sparks." - Jonah Lehrer, Imagine, pg212

I highly recommend this book. Get it on CD and listen to it while you work, or get ahold of a copy and read it bit by bit. It's digestible, interesting, and will make you think about how you create and how you could create more and better ideas.

Imagine by Jonah Lehrer Book Trailer from cosproductions on Vimeo.

Struggles of the Creative, or just a Lack of Tenacity?

I will never be a Mozart. I have come to terms with this and have realized that my continual need to change may not be a bad thing so long as I know what to do with it. Nevertheless, I ended up watching this TEDx talk by Angela Lee Duckworth, questioning whether my desire to move on before my 10 years of constant work and study takes me to the pre-determined "mastery" stage is really ok. In a New York Times article, one quote was really poking me in the brain as I wrestle with the question of whether it's more important to stick with something I have lost interest in or knowing when to throw in the towel:

People who accomplished great things, she noticed, often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take. She decided she needed to name this quality, and she chose the word “grit.”

This is something I struggle with. In college I ended up with my major because I decided I didn't really like taking tests and visual communications was just one of the many things I was interested in. By the end of my five years of college I was so ready to move on to something else that I really didn't quite know what to do. I knew I wouldn't do advertising - three years of vis-comm classes taught me that - and since film/video was an area we merely dabbled in and I found that I enjoyed, I wound up searching for jobs in the post-production field. Fortunately I landed a job doing what I wanted.

I said I'd give the job two years. After that amount of time I could start looking for other jobs if I wanted, but I felt like I needed to at least give it that. Reality hit when I was rejected for a job I really wanted, then was told I wasn't ready to pursue a master's degree by the one person who would make that decision should I apply, after which my art was rejected from a couple of juried exhibitions. Don't get me wrong, I did get some encouragement from other places, but this succession of rejections were like pouring salt on open wounds. *They* say that rejection is what we need for growth, so I keep trying to make sure that's true.

Amidst all this self-doubt and worry, I searched out lots of self-help books on making career and life choices. There was one book that really sang to my innermost questioning: The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One by Margaret Lobenstine. (From her site, you can download the first chapter of this book and related articles.) In this book she talks about being on a scale with Mozart on one end and Ben Franklin on the other. I would venture to guess I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't lack the ability to follow through, but I also lose interest after reaching a certain level of accomplishment. As she put it, renaissance souls like the uphill climb, or as I would say, the act of learning. Oft-times when I have a real hard-core goal that I'm after (getting good grades in school, finishing college, saving money for something I really want, etc), I can maintain the grit so long as that goal continues to be desirable. Once my interest starts waning, so does my tenacity.

I think it's definitely time to set some "hard-core" goals. Rather than new years resolutions, I'm taking up all the advice I keep reading about setting some year-long goals and stepping stones to those goals. Now let's just see how well those stick!

Note: I began this post in October 2011...

To be in the Studio or on the computer?

Originally I began blogging last year as a way to get myself to continually look for inspiration and I created it as a place to put that inspiration for my own self-reference. Furthermore, often when I come across things that I find inspiring I can't wait to share them with people. Voila: blog. Lately this blog has also taken on another purpose: it's a place for me to share the personal creative work I've been doing. It also happens to be inspirational to me, so I see it as a WIN-WIN.

Though I have been working on personal projects, they've mostly been digital, which means my studio time has diminished to almost nothing. This makes me sad. The other day I was shopping at the fabric store, getting some muslin to begin dyeing new curtains... again (my first attempt with the snow dyes was less than fantastic and my second attempt was less than spectacular as well), and I found the perfect fabric for a skirt I've been wanting to make. I decided not to let myself get the fabric because I already have at least half a dozen garment projects at home waiting for my attention. I told myself if I made one of those then I could go out and buy the fabric. So on a Friday afternoon, I stopped by the library to get some audio books on my way home, and spent the weekend sewing a shirt together.

I listened to one of these books twice, and have since listened to it again. It's right up there with the Elizabeth Gilbert TED talk that I go back to often, which I have previously blogged about. The book is called Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod. You can download the earlier version of his book for free and keep up with him on his blog.

Anyway, what I want to talk about here is the connection I made to one of the things Hugh MacLeod talks/writes about: Putting the hours in. This is where he mentions not being worried that someone might rip-off his idea of drawing on business cards because he does it for his own satisfaction and he's done so many of them that no-one could really overtake him in the sheer numbers produced AND it would be less satisfying for them because of whatever crazy reasoning they put behind it. I am relating to this in my process of creating puzzle photos as well as my more recent little planet creations (though sometimes I think of them as marbles because that's what they look like to me: a moment of time and space trapped in a glass sphere). Was I the first to come up with either of these ideas? No. And I probably won't be the last. My process has become my own and with each one I do, that process changes just a little bit. I create them for my own satisfaction.

I've been doing these puzzle photos for six years now, so I have quite a collection of them, and I'm always trying to figure out how to make them better. Sometimes I just don't get why one didn't work. Typically I can't really tell when I'm taking the photos how the final composition will look, so I've taken to increasing the number of photos and angles I take, which means that I end up producing even more of these final puzzles.

Well I've finally put all my puzzles and little planets from 2011 in one place: in my behance portfolio and I'm working on including all the puzzles I created from 2005-2010.