Overcoming Creative Block
Monday, 22. February 2016 2:11
Creative block comes to all of us from time to time and can constitute one of the most frustrating aspects of an artist’s creative life. Despite the abundance of information on what to do (A Google search yields between 15,800 and 2.2 million hits, depending how the search is phrased), it seems that nothing we can do will break the log jam. Ideas won’t come. And, if a person is active in multiple arts, sometimes it’s only one that’s blocked.
This happened to me very recently, and it had to do with writing this post. Now you would think that writer’s block would be impossible given that I have a blog idea file of some 720+ entries; none of them gained traction. I tried all the usual things that have worked for me in the past; no joy. Finally, I decided that the thing to do would be to write about the block, and headed off to the shower to think about it (It’s where some of my best thoughts happen.) Suddenly the log jam was broken. Ideas just poured. I almost couldn’t get my hands dry fast enough to push Siri’s button so she could record them. (The downside of shower ideas is that sometimes, like dreams, they disappear when there is a change of state.)
Here are some of the ones that came to mind. Of course, some of these sprang from the others, but that’s how creativity often works.
- The art show that advertised itself as erotic but wasn’t .
- The only person at that show who seemed to know what the word erotic means.
- The variety of arts gallerists and promoters that exist.
- Niche artists, especially those working in very tiny niches.
- The very popular single-subject artist I met who told me about changing topics when she discovered that her current topic sold better than her first one.
- How one develops his/her own taste as opposed to adopting someone else’s.
- The complexity of feelings that artists have for their past works.
- Whether or how the vanity press differs from self-publishing.
- Vanity galleries and all the names and plans under which they operate.
- The real cost of avoiding paying for professional expertise.
But they didn’t stop then. All morning, even as I was drafting this, ideas kept coming. Of course, all of these will be added to that same idea file. Some are likely to appear here in the future.
Upon analysis, what I learned about overcoming artist’s block is a rather simple two-part approach. Whether it will work every time or not, I have no idea, but it constitutes a creative tool, and one can never have too many of those. So I intend to keep in my kit.
The two parts are: (1) resolve to create something immediately, even if the subject matter is the block itself, and (2) do that. It may turn into nothing more than an exercise that removes the block, or it may, as in this case, turn into exactly what it was intended to be—a piece about creative block.
This was not the conclusion I had envisioned when I got into the shower, but this one is far more useful. Next time you’re blocked, give it a try—and let me know how it turns out.
Category:Creativity | Comments (2) | Author: Jay Burton