From The Mundane
Finding Inspiration In The Day To Day
"Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous" - Bill Moyers
In this week's episode of Starling, we soak in the common & overlooked to discover the creative potential in our mundane lives.
Thanks for joining me here to connect with your creative practice. I was thinking back over previous episodes and I realized, I hadn’t really talked much about what it means to be creative, or what creativity is. So lets take just a moment to think about that. What do you think it means to "be creative"? What is that force that we think of creativity? Most people connect it to originality, innovation, novelty and even our individuality. Each of you probably have your own understanding of what it means to be a creative person.
In both my own artistic endeavors and my life as a teacher, I have started to realize how limiting it can be to "think creatively". Which I know is odd to say as someone actively working with creativity.
That doesn't sound possible right? That creative thinking is limiting. It should be expanding, and of course, in actuality it is. But when we place a value judgement on an idea or action being creative, we are already limiting it. Believing that a concept has to be original or imaginative can make us abandon good ideas simply because they seem too basic. Trying to "be creative" can actually stop thinking completely and can limit our output. Fear that our ideas are not unique enough make what should be limitless, limited. Fear of not being creative can stop us from creating at all. When it is actually important to gain our footing in the mundane and simplistic so that we can expand.
So how do we know if what we are doing is creative? First consider this. Creativity is relative. The originality of an idea depends a lot on what our experience in the world has been.
(Click on the link below to listen to this episode)
Things that seems like common sense to one person can be a revolution to another. While age is a factor, so is geographical location, family history, IQ and EQ, familiarity with ideas one is developing and so on. What is unique to one is common to another. Think about cuisine, in America, land of meat and potatoes, spices used in Thai food or Indian food can seem very unique and exotic. But in actuality it is very common in the country that originated the recipes. It all depends on perspective as to what is original or creative.
Think about how we become more closed to creative thinking, as we get older. There is that paper clip experiment. Give someone a paper clip and have him or her come up with as many uses as possible for the paper clip. If you have young children, this is a fun exercise for them. Studies show that young children come up with literally like hundreds of uses, where adults often struggle to find 10. This is because we know all to well what the basic purpose of a paper clip is, so we let that knowledge limit us. And we think too concretely, which you know is a pet peeve of mine…I know I have mentioned before how literalism and concrete thinking destroys creativity if we are not careful. Because we have an assumption about the use we can’t see past it. Children in this thought experiment with the paper clip think of things like changing the scale of the paper clip or the material it is made from to give it more options.
Our mindset is often a knot to untie so that we can free up some creative potential.
Our life experience can really help or hinder our creativity as well. Consider that personally. Growing up in Lynchburg, VA, there was not a lot to do. So we had to find things, invent things to do. That meant being in local garage bands, designing our on clothes, making up scavenger hunts around town and making stuff. Boredom is actually creativity’s best friend. When we are bored, our mind can wander and consider new options. I often think if I had grown up with the world at my finger tips I may not have become an artist at all. There is a consumer or creator thing. If you have the ability to be surrounded by options, and the resources to get all that you need you may not have to be as creative. Think about how your upbringing, location and place in history contribute to your creative understandings. I know for sure if I had the internet and all that it offers as a kid…it would have been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that being able to discover and learn about all the things that interested me would have given me a head start, not to mention being able to find others like me more easily. But a curse in that it may have made me more of a consumer of things than a creator.
So…are you creative? How are you creative? What does being creative mean to you? How can you follow your thread and see how your creative thinking developed and are there knots you need to untie in there that can expand your creative abilities.
Artist Andy Warhol Found Inspiration In Eating A Cheeseburger
Also, who can you point to in your life as creative people? Both in your daily life and in the world in general. Why do you think those people are creative? How do you see creativity in others. Being an artist does not make you a creative. You can be an artist and not have much original thought at all. I mean that in any field of the arts. You can be a cashier at the grocery store and be super creative. That is why I always find it interesting when people point to artists as the example of creative thinking. I mean, for sure, artists can be really creative. But creativity is not at all limited in that way. So…think hard about it. Who do you know who is really creative? Why? What about them has enabled this way of being?
An important aspect to creativity is self reflection. And I hear this discussed a lot in our culture, but I rarely see it in practice. This means being able to let go of what you see as your identity for a few moments to really look at yourself critically. Take the mask off that you have fixed to yourself and look for thought patterns that limit you. Look for bias that can keep you from potential. This is truly one of the most important aspects of learning to think creatively. It’s hard, and people sometimes buck at this because they like the mask they are wearing. But connecting to our most creative self means dropping that occasionally for a real long look at the source.
Knowing why you are stuck in your thinking is the only way to break your creative boundaries.
That whole idea of thinking outside of the box, most people really think of an actual box but…you’re the box. You Are The Box...The box you have to learn to get outside of is yourself. Think outside of yourself and you can really get somewhere. And while you are out there begin to try to see fully the environment you are in and how it is an influence in your artistic understandings and overall ideas, unconscious bias and limited thinking patterns that may be holding you back from your best creative potiential…well really all potential.
In this week’s practices I am going to recommend, we are going to work on deepening our understanding of creativity by making some observations that go along with looking outside of our self.
In every moment people are making choices about how they approach life. Often it feels like there is very little creative thinking in our day to day lives, but in actuality, every thing we do there is a choice in how we do it. There is personal expression in every small action we take, in every moment. Effortlessly, we create our daily rituals and routines. You have probably already made tons of these creative choices today so far with little thought.
Bicycle Wheel
Bottle Rack
Fountain
During the next week, consider taking notes, documenting and observeing how others live their daily lives and the small creative choices that are made in mundane moments. By observing and seeing this process unfold in the way others approach the world, we can learn something about our own small creative choices. Try to see the magic in the mundane this week. Really notice the creation happening all around you at any given moment. How do your coworkers arrange the workspace? Notice the way people in your lives costume themselves in their clothing choices. If you have children observe their approach to daily tasks like brushing their teeth. At the grocery store observe how others place things in their cart. Do they use the child seat or the big basket? Once you start the observation you will see the originality in even the simplest acts. There are so many little ways we all find individual expression in basic tasks.
Learning to see the beauty in simple actions can awaken something within us and spark a desire to create something to honor the mundane. Instead of spending so much time trying to "be creative", simply observing living itself as a creative action can be very freeing.
And I know I mention Duchamp a lot but it he was it one of my inspirations for trying to develop practices to deepen creative living. He knew that how we live our lives is an act of creation. Actually it is the main act of creation that allows all other art to flow from us. Our life enables our creativity, or it limits it. How we look at basic day to day life and what we focus on or look to decides what we see.
Duchamp looked around in his own life and found what he called "ready mades". Objects that are part of our world that had their own inherit artistic value, but are often overlooked because they are mass produced or utilitarian in their function. According to Duchamp “An ordinary object [could be] elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.” In this way of thinking everything becomes art, regardless of it's form or function but because we as artists decide that something has artistic value or meaning. Duchamp used stools and bike wheles, bottle racks and the one thought brought the most interest and disdain, a urinal. I will make sure to include information about Ducahmp’s ready mades in my link on the show notes.
For Further Exploration
As you make your observations this week, perhaps you will find creative value in "readymades" as well as the actions of those around you. No one else is living their life in exactly the same way, not even all those Stepford Wives out there. Everyone and everything is part of the creative process we call living. So take notice.
Don't be a creeper or anything as you make your observations, but really notice of all the things this week and share what you find. You could keep notes and share those (either typed or a photograph of the handwritten ones), take photos or videos of what you notice, make a vlog about this practice. This is a process, so you may make multiple contributions this week in the comments as you engage with the mundane. You may even find this act of observation inspires creation. If you make a sketch of your observations it could lead to a painting. Your notes could inspire lyrics for a song or create an opening for a story. The way someone moves could inspire a dance. Be open to whatever comes from this dive into the ordinary creative world.
Enjoy the process. I look forward to seeing what you discover.
Practice:
- · Observe and make notes about the mundane world
- · Find acts of creation in seemingly uncreative environments and moments
- · What do you find beautiful in the basics?
- · What about readymades? Can you find any artistic value in overlooked objects?
- · Maybe play the paper clip game? Come up with as many uses as you can for a paper clip. Or better yet, with a readymade of your choice. Pick an object that you see some inherit beauty in and come up with new uses for this thing.
- · Reflect on your observations and discoveries.
- · How do these observations in the mundane connect to your understanding of yourself?
· See if these observations spark ideas to develop into new works