Ideas, Questions and Connections

Simple Pleasures, 2019. Ink and Watercolor. This piece of art came out of an art class on visual storytelling. Working on the project brought ideas, questions and connections into play to create this final piece.

 I began writing this week’s creativity post without a clear subject in mind. This was slightly stressful but also made me kind of curious to see what would emerge. I started with the obvious, “I want to write a blog post but have no ideas! What to do?”  After several false starts, three related themes emerged: ideas, questions and connections.

I started thinking about where ideas and inspiration come from. Such a large topic! What makes an idea different from a thought? How do we come up with ideas? Why are some ideas followed up on and others discarded? 

As I was thinking about ideas, I paid attention when I had a-ha moments. Here is a short collection of different places my mind wandered. 

I thought about the word “idea” and tried to define what I mean by that both in general and related to creativity. After going down various rabbit holes, I decided that it is a huge topic. It’s book worthy. Definitely worth more than a few paragraphs here. Doing a Google Search on “books on ideas and creativity,” dozens of interesting books showed up. Some I’ve read, many I have not. Now I have more books to add to my want-to-read list. That was a slight distraction. I invite you to search with the same terms and see what you find interesting.

I thought about how some part of ideas and inspiration occur while being outside and doing things. Seeing new things often makes connections to existing ideas. For example, I saw some geese in the sky who must have only taken off recently because they were in a messy unformed clump. Gradually though about half of the birds broke off and flew themselves into the classic arrow formation. The other half were still in the messy group, so un-geese-like, as they flew out of my sight. It was really interesting to see the geese moving themselves into formation. Mesmerizing even. But why only some of the birds? Why didn’t all the birds fly like that? And how did they learn how to do that?

I pushed a little further and began thinking of ideas that come because of asking questions. A bit of additional serendipity happened with an email that came in today and I was introduced to Warren Berger’s website A More Beautiful Question. There’s a wonderful collection of things to explore there! Asking slightly different questions leads to different ideas and inspiration.

I wasn’t having much luck with putting words together for today’s post, so I thought I’d take a break. I did some reading partly for the distraction but also partly to see what inspiration might come from someone else’s words. In The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander, I came across the thought that ideas emerge sometimes because of parameters set, framing of questions, and answering challenges.

And finally, I considered that ideas also come from and are made with connections. Talking to people, sharing ideas, seeing what ideas come up, seeing where someone may take that idea, who else might be introduced to the conversation about what’s being talked about. It’s an endless, fascinating path starting with one thing and ending up with so many more. 

 There is obviously so much more that can be said about ideas, questions and connections. It would be lovely to have an extended conversation about them. For now, however, what sparks ideas and inspiration for your creative pursuits? 

Noticing

This week my thoughts have turned towards noticing and paying attention.

I started a different kind of travel journal at the beginning of the month using photos from a trip to Amsterdam last year. My self-imposed creative challenge and restriction is to somehow use every single picture that I took during my trip. And no, I don’t plan to draw all 1000 photos in their entirety. However, I do need to take something from each and use it somewhere in my travel journal. 

Some of my pictures are wonderful, but others really aren’t. 

A view of construction and some buildings across the way from Amsterdam’s Centraal Station.

What’s very quickly emerged from this challenge is the sense of fun and adventure that I hadn’t expected. I study every picture to see what element I can take from it to work within my creative parameters. Each less than wonderful photo becomes really interesting. What bit of detail can I find in it and use to add to my story? It’s become a game. Everything I notice in one photo then makes it easier to spot in the next. I begin to notice more and more.

I chose to draw the cupola from the above street photo.

As I was drawing this domed building, I realized it was where the cupola I drew earlier resides.

What also happens with spending some time and paying attention, is that I end up liking whatever I’m drawing more and more. The object, not necessarily my picture. It becomes more interesting as I look at it and try to replicate some aspect of it in my sketchbook. In art, most things become more beautiful the longer you spend with it.

If you are interested in reading more on the subject of noticing, I have two books to recommend. One is On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation by Alexandra Horowitz where she takes walks with eleven different experts.  She shows how differently we all see the same areas based on our experience and interests. The other book is The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday by Rob Walker. This book is full of ideas to re-examine the regular and ordinary to find new and interesting things. 

What have you noticed recently? What have you put your attention towards? 

Surprise Growth

Rooting celery

Today’s thoughts come from me as a kitchen gardener.

One of the things I’ve been doing this strange, stressful year, aside from learning how to make sourdough bread, has been taking various vegetables from the kitchen and seeing if I can get them to grow.

I saw a video a few months ago showing how “simple” it is to root produce that ordinarily would be tossed into the compost after using. I like to garden outside but I’ve never been very successful growing food. I was curious to see if it would work for me.

I started with green onions. They seem pretty obvious since they usually come with roots. I stuck the ends of a bunch of scallions in a glass of water after I finished using the green parts. It wasn’t long before new roots grew. I felt so proud like I had accomplished something major instead of nature taking its normal course and having a lot to do with it.

After the green onion rooting success in water, I moved them to pots with dirt. They still survived and are thriving. I’m so proud of my scallions. I looked in my pantry and inside the fridge’s produce drawer for my next challenge. I thought I’d try an onion since that also has obvious roots. I was successful in creating rot. That was not a horticultural triumph!

I then tried a wilted bunch of celery. It had gotten limp in the fridge and since some herbs recover if they are put in glasses of water, I thought I’d try that with the celery. It works with cut celery. My bunch of celery was not happy. Maybe it was too far gone, but it was not happy and like the onion began to rot.

I left things for a while and turned my attention to the enjoyment of the success of the green onion growth planning how to use all of the ever growing bounty. I did come across another bunch of celery which was smaller than the last one so I stuck it in a jar of water to see what would happen.

Again I left things sit. I changed the water every few days but nothing really seemed to be happening. It wasn’t rotting but it wasn’t seemingly doing anything either.

Then one day I noticed there was something different. The celery looked bushier and greener than it used to. I took it out of the water and nothing there. No roots. And yet, day after day it looked more and more lush and bushy. Who knew celery could be that happy? And then one day after never seeing any roots, they had grown. My celery sprouted roots! I was so surprised it worked!

The surprise growth of roots reminded me that there are times when some creative ideas and projects need to be started and just left alone to sit and do their thing. To be left unbothered and un-poked, until one day the idea is ready and the puzzle’s been figured out. For ideas to develop they need the right conditions. It’s different for each idea and sometimes things have to be tried a few times to see if they’ll work.

Have you had any success with any projects or ideas by just letting them sit undisturbed?

Choose to Do What Works for You

Peace Statue at Nagasaki, Japan, drawn for Inktober 2017, Day 7

As I’m writing this post, the second week of Inktober (a challenge of doing 31 days of ink drawings) has begun and is well underway. There’s an official list of daily one word prompts as well as many, many variations on themed prompts. Look for #Inktober2020 on social media to see some examples. There are some really creative drawings to be found!

I love pen and ink work so I have participated at various times over the past several years. I love the idea of Inktober but I’ve never actually completed the full 31 days. Last year some of you may remember, I made an animals list from the book Life of Pi. I think I’m on Day 22 of those. Still not done. The year before that, I was drawing from my pictures from my time living in Japan. I only got to Day 7. It’s like failing on New Year’s Resolutions or trying to change habits.

I’m disappointed that I haven’t finished these Inktobers. How hard can it be to do a daily drawing? It turns out, for me, it’s a challenge.

I decided this year that I would adjust the parameters to work with the way I work.

I draw and draw a lot, but I don’t tend to finish drawings in one day. Experience has shown me that. I tend to draw fairly slowly and add a lot of detail. Working off of Inktober prompts means needing to complete a drawing a day. That has been my stumbling block. I decided instead to draw in ink everyday for 30 minutes and make daily progress on a project rather than completing daily drawings.

I love architecture and drawing details. I was in Amsterdam in 2019. I drew some while there, but I took a lot of pictures so I could draw from them later.

So for this year’s Inktober project, I am drawing everyday in ink for 30 minutes and I’m drawing Amsterdam from my photographs. I’m very pleased to have figured out a way to make meeting the challenge work for me. (You can see my progress on FaceBook and Instagram).

Is there some way you can tweak a challenge to work with your nature rather than fight it?

A Visual Metaphor

Some of my pieced batting and scraps from trimmed quilts to add later.

I was working on a quilting project last week and needed some batting to put in the middle of the fabric layers. When I found it, I had to stop and admire it for a while. The piece that I found was pieced from scraps of batting from other projects. I love the randomness of the different sized pieces. I remember times I’ve set aside to stitch scraps of batting together to make wider strips and then larger pieces of fabric. I enjoy the process of setting my machine to a honeycomb stitch, finding batting colored threads to use and then stitching away. This kind of pieced batting is sound for my purposes. There’s more thread, but it will work the same as a freshly cut whole piece.

What struck me when I looked at my beautiful pieced batting sample was not only how much time went into making it, and the deliberate economy, but also that it was going to be used in a place no one would ever see it. It will be in the middle of two layers of fabric and stitched together. No one will ever see of know, other than me and now you, that this labor of love is in the middle, hidden away.

How many other places in our lives does this kind of thing happen? I’ve thought about education, experience, deliberate practice and things like cooking and gardening. Are there any things you do that may have deeply worked hidden layers?

Planning to Have No Plans

I’ve been thinking about time recently: deep thinking time and creating time.

In our busy, busy productivity society, there seems to be a a bias towards getting things done and marking things off of check lists. It seems sometimes the only way we can prove that we have been productive, is by listing off all the things we’ve gotten done in that day, week, month or year.

There’s a lot to be said for to-do lists and getting things done. Things get done. I like that. That’s positive! But all the to-do’s can become a lot of chattering noise which is distracting and makes it hard to focus. I’m finding that having periods of time without a predetermined goal and without interruptions is what I am looking for and wanting. I want the calm and the peace to let my mind drift where it wants to and make the connections between ideas that it does. It’s in these periods when I have a-ha moments, figure out a next part of my life puzzle, or just enjoy the freedom from to-do’s.

I find that the busy-ness of to-do lists also inhibits creative play and exploration. Trying something new requires a certain amount of psychic energy. Things take longer because it’s new and I’m not sure what I’m doing. It’s hard to get fully engaged if there’s only a fifteen minute window or an hour before the next meeting. If I’m doing something I’m familiar with, I can squeeze it it. If it’s new, I won’t try it then.

Ironically, sometimes it’s important to plan to have no plan and put that down on my list or calendar to allow time for deeper thinking and creative play.

How do you create best?

Make a Mark, Any Mark

Confronting a blank sheet of paper…

Have you ever been confronted with a blank sheet of paper and you weren’t inspired or had absolutely no idea what to do?

An empty canvas or blank sheet of paper can have too many options of what is possible and also can set off a cycle of negative thinking and worries about whatever it is that will be, will be no good so why even start?

One way to get past all the over-thinking in your head is to set up a few design limitations, make a mark and then see what happens.

Constraints can be good for creative inspiration, especially if you’re stumped for what to do. For example:

• Choose to use only a single color or choose to use just a few.

• Choose three things to put on the page.

• Think of a word that has meaning to you.

• Think of an experience you’ve had.

• Choose a random shape or two to include.

This is just a start of the possibilities of what to begin with within limits.

Then make a mark, any mark and see what happens next. Often times, the first thing on the page will lead to a second which will influence the third. Limits are good and get the creative juices started. Too many constraints, though, shut down the creativity and fun. There is a happy middle zone for everyone.

The original mark may not be visible by the end of your piece, but it’ll be there and it’s what got you started. The art you made may surprise you but at least you spent some time art making and being creative.

Here’s a start after a few minutes. I started with a dot - the big circle, then added three triangles and then the zig-zag lines. Once those were down, then I wanted to add more and do more. I’ll add more to it later or I’ll leave it. I enjoyed the time of playing.

The sources of inspiration for today’s blog post come from Slow Knitting by Hannah Thiessen, the weekly newsletter of textile artists Linda and Laura Kemshall, a video clip from BBC Ideas, “How Limits Can Boost Your Creativity”, and the children’s book Dot by Peter H. Reynolds (you can see a reading of it on YouTube here).