Open and Close

"Sing like the birds’ sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.” –Rumi

As I mentioned I was inspired by listening to the artist Susan Bein explaining her creative process with my last blog post. There were multiple valuable points she brought forth. Susan talked about one crucial element that sustains her long career of being an artist (she is now 70 years old, and she has been involved in multiple creative fields for over 50 years) is to stay curious, and to be receptive to what is happening around us, staying open to opportunities. Her emphasis on cultivating curiosity, be “hungry like animals” as she put it, resonated with me.

From my experience, when I stay open and receptive during the creative process, I feel I am receiving a gift from something bigger than me. Sparks fly, the process is fluid, and at times it almost feels magical. On the contrary, when I feel closed off, when my heart is not in it, when I say to myself "I can't do that, it's too ordinary. I am repeating myself too much...", the creative process becomes a chore; something I do to fill up a quota. When those frustrating moments occur, I sabotage my own enjoyment by tying my hands with too much self-censoring.

There was this commencement speech given by Steve Jobs at the Stanford University years ago when he mentioned his taking a calligraphy class at Reed Universit. As he said, “Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macinstoh computer, it all came back to me”

While I appreciate there is growth with my path, but what comes with it is also a loss of innocence. It's not easy to reconcile with that conflicting feeling of just wanting to make work that gives me joy, but at the same time looking over my shoulder thinking if I am making any progress. When we are engrossed in the creative process, those moments when the sparks fly are far and in between. They don’t always tie neatly together. But while you cannot make sense looking forward, you may connect those moments when you look backward. You cannot question if your every effort is going to pay off, some may, and some may not. It is all a gamble with any creative effort. You must trust your gut that eventually this will make sense in some ways, even though only a little bit of your path may be illuminated at the moment, but that is what makes the creative path such an enriching journey.

Steve Jobs’ motivation of taking the calligraphy class was not to become an expert in calligraphy or to become a great artist. His act of trying his hands at something he had no knowledge of spoke of him being a curious human being. It is important to give ourselves the permission of being a child to play and have fun if we want to harness the greater creative energy in our life.