Are You Making Enough Mess In Your Creative Life?

[Dan Goodwin]

How much of your creative time is play time? Where you just experiment, try new techniques, make a mess?

Most if it? Half of it? NONE of it?

Do you instead have to carefully pre-plan every step of your creative process, making sure that along the way, everything runs as smoothly as possible, right down to the last perfect detail?

Oh, I mentioned that dreaded P word. Perfect. Or, in its longer form, perfectionism.

Many of us, maybe most of us, seem to have this idea that everything we produce should be magnificent and flawless, the finished "products" must be of an exquisitely high standard, near perfect.

We think that we should be able to come to create each project with everything already in place, and that all our learning and experience should somehow be there already.

If we want to try a new creative form especially, we tend to expect we can instantly be brilliant at it within a couple of tries. And we get frustrated if we aren't. We believe that if we are truly creative and talented, it should come so easily, and there’s very little work or learning to be done.

If we’re genuinely creative, we shouldn’t need to work or struggle or evolve. Right?

Let me share with you a personal example of how I realised this belief isn’t true.

I haven't painted much, maybe 40 paintings altogether, and I'd call them all experiments. Maybe 5 of those 40 I was really pleased with because I feel I grasped a particular technique or the idea I had actually came out quite well.

But when I started, I thought it’d be much easier than it was. I quickly learned that the enjoyment of creating, especially the physical experience you get when painting (these were large, abstract field of colour type paintings with lots of paint!) was more valuable to me than any end “product”.

(That's not me in the picture by the way...)

Another example. My main creative discipline is writing. I remember when I started seriously churning out poems, when I was about 20. The first 150 or so I look back on now and compared to what I can write now, I see them as simple, or primitive or clumsy in their language and structure.

BUT I see in virtually every poem, some promise, some evolution, some learning. Some poems are an obvious watershed, a new style or tone of voice or structure that clearly defined the next level for me.

(As an aside here, I’ve also shown a few people my early poems alongside some written 10 years later, that I consider far more accomplished, and they have got more from reading the early ones. So another lesson there.)

The point is, we all need practice and fun and play and experimentation, whatever we create.

Art is about self discovering, about finding ways to enjoy it more, and ways to express ourselves more clearly, closer to that shining vision in our mind of what we want our art to come out like.

Of course, we also have along the way the serendipity of the Happy Accident, that we can ONLY find through removing our artistic straightjackets and being comfortable in throwing paint around, writing outside of a set rhythm, or playing with settings on a camera or creative toy rather than reading the instructions...

When we create like this, we stumble, often more by luck than judgement, across a new way of expressing ourselves that’s exciting, fresh, new. And we follow that new path and evolve further. We can’t do that if we create a carbon copy of the same picture, sculpture or collage time and time again.

We don't know what our own voice is until we try on a few, or we try speaking in a few different dialects and tones, to see what fits for us, which resonates most clearly and allows us to communicate the core passion of our art, both to ourselves and to others.

So, I invite you to take an honest look at your own creative life, and see how much time you make for play and experimentation.

If you feel it’s very little, then maybe given some of the benefits we’ve talked about, you’d like to consider how you can bend the rules a little and create more diversely. Ways you can create less perfectly.

Making a mess could be the best thing you've done for your creativity in a long time.

Please share with us below your thoughts on making a mess and experimenting, and how significant a place it currently has in your own creativity.

[image credit: Daugirdas Tomas Photography]

[Francesca]

Absolutely,
for example I have found a sheet of paper covered with a print of rippling water and I started writing with a golden ink pen on it... it turned out to be about the transformations and journey of a dolphin... Yesterday I posted the first part of the poem in my thirty days. I am having fun with this unexpected and symbolic theme.

[Dan Goodwin]

Francesca, that's an intriguing approach to spontaneous writing, how what you choose to write on is spontaneous as well as what you write.

[Dan Goodwin]

Wendy, I know you've been doing brilliantly in and greatly enjoying the Thirty Days of Creating project. Another benefit of creating every day is you have more time and confidence to experiment. If you only create, say once a week or once or fortnight, then the pressure each time is much greater. So the tendency towards perfectionism is greater as a result. If you create every day though, in a month yes you might have 3 or 13 or 23 days where you experiment and don't get much from it. But you might also have a few days where you discover an amazing new theme or technique or material or style. If you had only been creating once a fortnight, it would have taken you months or even years to do the same, and you probably would've given up before you got there anyway!

[Dan Goodwin]

Dave, good to get your comments, how you doing?

I've seen many times myself how I've had an idea, written it down, but not quite known what to do with it, so just let it incubate. Days, or weeks, or months later I've been browsing through ideas and it's been exactly what I needed... Like you say, keep what you create (I'd say especially in terms if ideas) because you might develop it at a later time...

[Francesca]

Hi Dan,
recently I have been using free flowing writing a lot. It happens in a strange way... I see a piece of paper or other material that catches my attention and just begin to write on it, (no, I don't write on public buildings or monuments!!). Then, sometimes I find that I can rearrange what I have written in a different meaningful pattern. Usually the moment before starting writing, when I contemplate the white page is scary but then I take the plunge and avoid judging my writing in the process.
I am interested in the creative process and the way I experience it, more than in the final product, at least at this stage. I would say this attitude is part of a personal quest.
So thank you for this inspiring article.

[Wendy]

Hi Dan, fabulous article.I know I will need to read it many, many times, lol. This may be my #1 creative challenge. I am definitely one of those people that feels like a failure if my first attempt at a technique is not a "flawless project." And - I am VERY uncomfortable with just playing in art. I will have to take tiny steps forward because - though everything you say makes wonderful sense - I'm going to need to work very hard to truly adapt that philosophy. Hey - acknowledging the problem is the first step, right, lol?

[Dave Edwards]

yeah, it's good to experiment occasionally and take chances. I'd say the most important thing to remember is NEVER THROW ANYTHING AWAY! YOu may be struggling to get an idea or an image across and lack the necessary skills to do this BUT the day will soon come when you DO have those skills and you can return to your earlier attempts and improve on them.

[Dan Goodwin]

Thanks Sue. I think you sum up quite succinctly in your blog post what many of us feel when you say: I have some resistance to trying out new things artistically when I’m not sure I will like the results.

Glad to hear you've been allowing a little messiness in your creative life! : )

Dan

[sueokieffe]

Hey Dan,
My dishes still aren't washed, but I did get messy yesterday. :) I posted about it in the 30 Day Challenge as well as here
Thanks for writing this post! We were in sync.

[Dan Goodwin]

Thanks for your comments Cai. Yes, I so agree - "embrace the messiness!! embrace the mistakes as they are lessons!!"

And sometimes the "mistakes" actually lead to the some of the best art we've ever created!