It’s not a particularly fashionable idea right now but if you scratch any interesting artist you’ll hear that one of the key components to how they do it is that they don’t really know what they’re doing. […] If you don’t know what to expect, there’s a chance the listener and reader will find themselves in a place they wouldn’t expect to end up, that’s where interesting art resides.
When you create anything, the spirit you create it with, the energy, the excitement, is translated into the product itself. So when somebody writes a book just for money, you can kind of smell it. When you read the book, it kind of reeks. We can sense that. But when the writer is excited, it excites the reader. So the love and the desire you put into your project will translate.
If I’m working on a particular track and I’m not particularly into what I’m doing or not sure what to do next, the natural thing is to have a break, just do something else. I have lots of tracks I’m working on at the same time. That’s changed over the years because I’ve got all these sketches on my phone as well.
I never treat anything as a reject, I never delete anything. It’s just a matter of when I’m ready to work on it again. Having this huge archive of unreleased, unfinished music, I can dip into any of it if I don’t feel like starting something new. It’s good to remind myself that I shouldn’t pressure myself into coming up with new ideas all the time. Sometimes there’s gems in there that just need watering and giving some TLC.
Discovery is curiosity’s product; everything else, including immeasurable economic value, follows. We cannot know the worth of something we have not yet discovered. The joy is the rainbow, not the hope of gold at the rainbow’s end.
Everybody is brought up with the idea that you need to make great art. But most of the things that I listen to and I really love is very modest art. Like, even if you think of library music, it’s not made to be art. It’s made to be used for commercials. But there’s so much love in the craft that it becomes amazing. And it’s very modest. I think this struggle is a good thing to go back to, and retreat from. It makes you progress. Even if you’re not going to make the greatest record or write the greatest novel, the process of doing it helps you progress.
Unfilled moments, moments where you don’t have entertainment, or moments where you don’t have companionship, may actually spawn creativity. Certainly a lot of 19th-century romantics thought that.
Being still with yourself can give access to all sorts of ideas and musings that wouldn’t otherwise occur. So perhaps in our quest to end boredom our creativity is being stunted, and we’re actually becoming more boring.
After being a nun in Los Angeles for thirty years, Corita Kent moved across the country to Boston so she could live quietly and make her art. Her apartment had a big bay window and a maple tree out front, and she liked to sit there and observe the tree changing throughout the seasons.
[...]
For Kent, the tree came to represent creativity itself. Like a tree, creative work has seasons. Part of the work is to know which season you’re in, and act accordingly. In winter, “the tree looks dead, but we know it’s beginning a very deep process, out of which will come spring and summer.”
Making comics is self-indulgent! When it’s good I feel like I’m playing with all my toys on one of those children’s rugs with the roads and buildings on them.
[...] contemporary digital cultures provide rich opportunities for the promotion of play that is rooted in children’s everyday experiences. This is not [...] an inferior form of play; rather, it sits alongside more traditional play activities and is important for creative development
...it seems to me that everybody, no matter what his or her field is, can be truly intelligent for about four hours a day and God, it seems that would be enough. And so you just pick the four hours, it can be midnight until four in the morning, and mine happens to be from six to ten.
I am now in my sixties and drawing comics again has rejuvenated me. It is not only that I am doing the kind of work I did in my youth, but that I am directing my mind to think along the same lines that it did back then. [...] To do creative work is good for the soul. As long as you have an enthusiasm, you have happiness.
“Hello students, meet Professor Skeletor. Be on time, don’t miss class, and turn off your phones. No time for introductions, we start drawing right away. The goal is more rock, less talk, and we communicate only through images.”
“Syllabus takes the course plan for Barry's workshop and runs wild with it in her densely detailed signature style. Collaged texts, ballpoint-pen doodles, and watercolor washes adorn Syllabus 's yellow lined pages, which offer advice on finding a creative voice and using memories to inspire the writing process. Throughout it all, Barry's voice (as an author and as a teacher-mentor) rings clear, inspiring, and honest.”
“As a technology pioneer at MIT and as the leader of three successful start-ups, Kevin Ashton experienced firsthand the all-consuming challenge of creating something new. Now, in a tour-de-force narrative twenty years in the making, Ashton leads us on a journey through humanity’s greatest creations to uncover the surprising truth behind who creates and how they do it.”