Creativity isn’t just something we do

As an adult how much of what you learnt at school do you use in your daily life?

For me, I find myself thinking about the things I learned in art class. It taught me about the different ways in which we can see the world and most of all it taught me about life.

I remember being in grade nine working on my masterpiece. At this late stage in the semester, our teacher would walk around the class and meet us all where we were at. For some students that would be; “You can’t sit here all afternoon and just wait for inspiration to strike. Let’s have a chat… what do you think about this? How might you represent that visually?”
At times I felt for the art teachers. It was like pulling teeth for them, trying to get teenagers to perform in a class that was not an academic prerequisite for university.

But our art program was never about what you could slap on a canvas the day before the deadline. We were taught about the difference between decoration and art. Sure, you could submit a painting that you did 24 hours before, but that would be no more than a picture. Art is about the process involved and the meaning behind it.

It was here that I learned about creativity as a discipline. In my final year of schooling I would turn up to class and though I didn’t necessarily know where things would lead, I would begin. I did so without fearing what would come of it.

I had always admired the grade 12 art exhibitions. They were always filled with such beauty and as a younger child I couldn’t wait to turn out something beautiful.

But by the time I arrived at that stage I had been taught that what we create need not necessarily be beautiful. Ugly and shocking art pieces also attract a lot of attention, can be thought provoking and deliver a message. This was possibly the biggest catalyst to my creating.

I had no patience to copy a picture, precisely as it had been taken in a photo. I could do it, sure. But I considered it to be a waste of my time. Instead I was captivated with contemporary artists who addressed concepts such as gender, class and shocked their audiences visually. They created something unique, that had never been seen before. Beauty is captivating but what does it make you question, (other than perhaps your own imperfections)? I wanted to give my audience something to chew on.

Many of my peers liked to talk during art class and I was usually a chatty student. But during art, I would fall into a trance-like silence. My process started as word maps. It would turn into research and then finally into paintings, drawings and sculptures.

When it came time to present to one another I observed that art class brought students together as a cohort like no other schooling subject could. We considered each other’s perspective and shared parts of ourselves regardless of our respective peer groups. There was no damning red pen to tell you that you had presented things incorrectly or that your sentence structure needed work.

So back to this particular day in year 9, I was working on quite a large-scale piece. When the teacher came around to me he said, “Step back from the canvas.”
At this point I wasn’t thrilled to be interrupted if I am honest but I was soon to be very grateful for the insight he would share. “Have a look at the whole and I want you to do this frequently so you can see what it needs.”

These words came back to me the other day whilst I was working and I thought of the human experience in terms of art. Our lives are the masterpiece. When we breathe our last, that marks its completion. We can’t see everything when we are working on things close up, day-by-day. We might not be able to anticipate the next move that needs to be taken. It is only when we step back that we can gather perspective.

And in order to do that we need to ‘be’. We need to stop doing, producing and consuming. Sometimes it might not come naturally, and it might seem counter-productive. But in my experience, it is at these times when we get still and quiet that we know with certainty what our next move should be.

Each of our lives are a masterpiece, regardless of whether they are beautiful or perfect. Like my younger self who looked at pretty pictures and couldn’t wait to create something beautiful; many of us want security, to have success and to make it look easy. But just like copying a drawing from a photograph, if we choose this path, in the end, we have discovered nothing different than those who have preceded us. The alternative, instead, is our brave journey into the unknown.  We might not be able to see what the end result is as we are creating it, but just like a masterpiece that appreciates over time, we are able to look back at our journey with fondness for where we ended up. The curve balls we encounter along the way is exactly what makes the masterpiece so valuable and unique. It is on this path that we discover perhaps what only we could see and then can share it with others.

I contemplated earlier on my art teacher willing my peers to be creative as if they were pulling teeth. Hearing these conversations made me feel desperate for these students to just do something – anything, so that the teacher would be able to stop nagging them. Today I feel the same twinge of desperation mixed with hope for fully grown adults talking about waiting for their break. It’s not that I don’t believe in breaks, it’s just that I don’t believe they are lucky.  In the words of my father “there are no free lunches”. Creativity, that silent trance like state is a muscle.  And it’s only now that I realise that; creativity is not just something that we do. It’s a place we go. It is the very definition of being.

Inspiration only tends to come along once you have shown up first. When it comes to inspiration and creativity we always have to be the bigger man. We have to be the ones to show up before the party has started, over and over again. Sometimes that divine moment of inspiration is particularly cruel and takes us to our breaking points before it graces us with its presence. It’s all part of the test. Inspiration, is much like a lover playing hard to get. It wants to know that you are truly invested, before it gives in to the chase.

If you are someone who is looking for that big break or who struggles to ‘step back from the canvas’, per se; I would encourage you to look into our “Beautiful” retreats coming up next year in Australia. These events are specifically designed to meet you where you are at along the journey that is your masterpiece and navigate those turns.