Tag: creativity

I’m the best!

dannygregory32 Comments

Maybe I’m not the best writer.

Maybe I’m not the best artist.

Maybe I’m not the best thinker.

But I am supremely qualified to do at least one thing. Here’s my superpower:

I’m the best person to write what I think.

I’m the best person to draw the world through my eyes.

I’m the best person to express my point of view, my experiences, my mistakes, my shortcomings, my strengths.

When I compare myself with others and what they make, when I think, ‘Oh, I could never do that!’, it’s easy to forget my superpower.

And if I do, I won’t express myself — and no one else will.

And even if they were to try, they couldn’t to do it as well as I could. So, it’s up to me.

Learn from others, but don’t wish to be them. We all have unique ways of seeing the world. And we all have our own, priceless way to express what we are.

Have you used your superpower yet?

No returns, no regrets

dannygregory23 Comments

Getting what you want out of any creative form takes work. You have to make a lot of crap to get to the good stuff. You invest time. You tussle with the monkey. You doubt yourself.

Why bother?

It’s easy to avoid being great. In fact, the world seems to want you to avoid it. It bombards you with temptations and distractions. It seems not to understand why you are wasting your time. It fills your browser with zillions of example of people who are doing what you should be doing, only better and seemingly without effort.

But being great at what you’re good at has lots of benefits. And they’re not the benefits you imagine. The goal is not numbers: not more $ in the bank, more Twitter followers, more awards on your mantle.

The goal is to be who you are meant to be: a person who is living a life of fulfillment, who is working for something bigger than themselves, who is helping, who matters.

You have gifts to give to the world. But it may just take some sweat to unwrap them.

Me, Myself and ________.

dannygregory15 Comments

The forms of art I work at are solitary. Writing, drawing — I start with blankness and have to look inside myself to fill it up.

So many other artists have collaborators.  Choreographers who work with dancers. Pianists who work with Mozart. Directors who work with screenwriters and cinematographers and editors. They have sand in their oysters, something to push off. I start only with me.

But I wouldn’t trade with them. I never have to compromise, dilute, or share. My hands stay on the reins and I pick the path, lonely and rocky though it may be. I own the blame and the glory.

What I make is mine. And that’s fine.

The Dangers of Dabbling

dannygregory53 Comments

You may be good at several things.  You may be one of those “creative types” who cooks and weaves and writes poetry and plays the ukulele. I’m there. I am a dabbler in all sorts of things. I love plunging into new skills, learning the basics of HTML5, then editing film, then painting with gouache, then roasting a chicken.

But I know, not even that deep down, that I am not getting all I can out of any of these skills. That I am still envious when I see someone doing something truly great at which I am only marginal. I know they are getting far more out of this art than I am.

Being great at something takes work.

Doesn’t matter how talented, how smart, how connected you are, you have to focus and work to refine you skills and your vision. That can be painful at times; how much easier to find another meadow to graze in.

Here’s an interesting phenomenon: the famous, would-be poly-tasker. Michael Jordan leaving the NBA to play baseball for one dismal season. Eddie Murphy recording a disco album. Fame brings opportunity: who was gonna tell Allan Iverson not to record a gangsta rap album? When Picasso read his poetry at Gertrude Stein’s salon, she said “Pablo, stick to painting.” And then there’s James Franco. But being a genius in one field doesn’t effortlessly make you Leonardo.

I wonder how many people get sidetracked from their true calling by the fact that they have talent to excel at more than one artistic medium. This is a curse rather than a blessing. If you have only one option, you can’t make a wrong choice. If you have two options, you have a fifty percent chance of being wrong.
— Twyla Tharp

I’m not saying, “Stick to your knitting.” It’s quite possible you don’t need to excel at at one thing, that you are content playing the field. For you, creativity is just a hobby, and you don’t want to invest in any particular medium or metier. If so, good on ya — but know what you are giving up. When you focus on the thing that you were born to do, work hard and really push yourself, you will find new pleasures, deeper, richer, more fulfilling experiences that dabbling will never provide.

Do some self-examination and listen for your true calling. What do you feel in your marrow? And are you investing all you need to to achieve your own personal form of Greatness® there?

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Finding fulfillment

dannygregory37 Comments

Recently, I have been reading the amazing biography of van Gogh by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. What a story! Vincent tried so many things before turning to art. He was desperate to find a vocation and devote his life to something that his family would think was worthy. But nothing stuck. He tried being a print dealer, a clerk, a schoolteacher, a minister, a missionary, and each time, despite starting with intense enthusiasm, he gave up and wandered away.

Getting good at something involves two, related factors.

One — you have to work at your skills. Practice, experiment, research, study, and come back to work, regularly, for an extended period of time. I don’t care who you are or what talents you think you have, working at your craft is crucial to greatness. Experience makes you better, more facile, more intuitive, more apt to come up to some new and great. There may seem to be shortcuts. They are illusions. Even one-hit wonders work their butts off for years. Vincent was certainly willing to put in the work — but he couldn’t stick with anything. Why?

The second factor is purpose. This is more complicated than just wanting to be great at something. It’s about your calling. What must you do even if no one ever saw you doing it or paid you to do it? What will you stay up late to do? Skip meals to do? Do until your shoulders cramp and your hands fall asleep? What completes you?

We all have something we can excel at. It might be throwing a football, making a sauce, curing disease, building a house or running a country. If you can’t think of what that is, you just haven’t found it yet.

When you discover this purpose, it will fuel you while you do all the work required to be good at it. Without it, you won’t get far. But to find your true purpose, you must be brutally honest with yourself.

I took a creative writing class in college. When the professor told us we needed to submit a story each week, one of my classmates groaned, “A story every week? That’s required?” The teacher paused then said, “Why are you here?” and we each looked into our souls.

You can’t pick a purpose because it’s fashionable or lucrative. Don’t take up acting just to become a celebrity. Don’t go to graduate school just because no one will hire you. Don’t become a missionary just to please your dad. Write because you have to, not because you want to be “a writer”.

Finding your purpose can take work too. It means exposing yourself to lots of different experiences until something clicks. Watch YouTube videos, observe people running different kinds of businesses, wander through museums or hardware stores, ask strangers what they do and why. What draws you in?

Look into yourself and your past. What were the moments that brought you the greatest happiness? When did you truly feel you were you? Where were you? What were you doing? What was the essence of that moment? Was it about helping others? Making something with your hands? Solving a complex problem? Organizing chaos?

You can discover your purpose at any age. You might be young and starting your career. You might have spent thirty years doing something indifferently because you had to bring home the bacon. It’s not too late. Vincent discovered his purpose just ten years before he died. But it gave his whole life meaning.

Can you live yours without it? Should you?

{Thanks to everyone who commented and emailed after my mea culpa post yesterday.  Your understanding and encouragement mean the world to me.}

Baby steps

dannygregory18 Comments

When I started working with Keith, I was not in great shape.  I had pains in my lower back, carpal tunnel syndrome, and chronic headaches. But I just grinned and bore these maladies. As far as I was concerned, these were just part of being me, aches and pains that I’d developed since I’d first started pounding on a computer all day, decades before — my imperfections, unfixable.

As for going to a trainer, well, that was all very well, paying someone to hold my hand while I walked around the gym, counting off reps, giving me encouragement, helping me build my biceps or lose a few pounds. Eventually, there were some meager results so I could take it or leave it.

Keith taught me otherwise. He showed the point of exercise is not six-pack abs or marathon times. It’s about making the most of the equipment we have for living out the rest of our days and that making certain little changes could make huge differences to my body and to my life.

We worked on tiny muscles hidden deep along my spine and  between my shoulder blades. We focussed on the exact angle of my tailbone when I crouched, correcting and re-correcting. We looked at the angle of my pelvis in the mirror. We rolled the fascia alongside my left thigh with rubber logs and built up strength in my right quadriceps.

After a few months, standing and moving in a balanced way became second nature. The unnatural way I had held my shoulders, my neck, my stance, were replaced with alignment.  Now if I hunched my shoulders or sat in a cramped and twisted way, my body told me something was wrong and I adjusted.

My headaches vanished. My hands no longer tingled. My feet, which had always splayed out like Charlie Chaplin lined up toe to heel. My carriage grew more and more erect. Jenny noticed that I was getting taller, soon by a couple of inches. I felt better all the time. And happier too.

For the first time, my relationship with my body changed because I saw what truly is. Not just a couple hundred pounds of annoying meat but an amazing machine that just needs to be tuned and maintained.

I discovered that my body is a miraculous system of complex interconnected processes that can be adjusted, honed, perfected. The way I was didn’t have to be the way I’d be. The unhealthy adaptations I’d made to certain chairs, desks, sidewalks, stresses, ways of standing, sitting, sleeping, were not carved in stone. And my assumptions about my physical being, that it was some sort of curse to be endured, an uphill battle that would always let me down, was nonsense. Being out of whack, behaving in ways that hurt me, limiting my ability, assuming that there was no solution — all these behaviors and thought patterns were replaced by balance and a better way of being.

For the first time, my relationship with my body changed because I saw what truly is. Not just a couple hundred pounds of annoying meat but an amazing machine that just needs to be tuned and maintained. Not for vanity but because of how it helps me live better and get the most out of each day. A few small adjustments in my body led to a change in my entire being. In my life.

Similarly, when I began to draw, I had no idea what seismic shifts this small change would cause in my life. Many of friends tell me that picking up a pen and opening up a sketchbook ultimately led them to change careers, travel the world, publish books, make new friends, new priorities, new plans for their remaining days.

Why? Why does this simple habit make such a difference? When you start to draw, you set things in motion. You start to see what is. Perhaps you’ll see beauty where you overlooked it. Perhaps you will fill books with stories about your life, an ordinary life, and suddenly see it is actually quite rich and wonderful. And perhaps the power of seeing so clearly will make you want to go and see more. And that desire will cause you, like Mole in The Wind in the Willows or Bilbo Baggins, to lock the door of your cozy little life and wander out into the wide world.

Maybe seeing clearly will show you that you have been hiding your true self from yourself, have been leading a life that wasn’t really what you wanted, that you could do more, that you could be more. That your childhood dreams are still valid, that your parents, your banker, your boss, your children can’t call all your shots. And that time is running out.

When you make art, you slowly brush the cobwebs from your inner life and sunlight starts to stream in. Who knows what it might reveal?

Maybe you will see that drawing is a thing that you actually can do even though the monkey has too long told you that you can’t, because you suck, because you have no talent or time. And, when you discover this power, you may come to wonder what else you have overlooked or deceived yourself about, what else you can do and be. Maybe you could paint or play the piano or visit Rome or hang-glide or open a store or be a clown or run for Prime Minister.  Or hire a trainer and get rid of your headaches.

This can be scary, feeling the first winds of freedom and change sweeping through the open door of your golden cage. But if you don’t face this fear from some angle, how can you ever see your life for what is and can be?

When you make art, you slowly brush the cobwebs from your inner life and sunlight starts to stream in. Who knows what it might reveal? Who knows what journey you are about to embark upon once you uncap that pen and take that first little step? Don’t you want to see?

Pre-crastination

dannygregory9 Comments

I’m sitting on a deadline.

Well, not on it ; it’s still a few months away. I don’t know when it is exactly, maybe late January or mid- February. I could look it up — but I’ll forget it right away. It’s a line and it’s dead and it sucks in everything around it like a big black hole.

Will I die if I cross it without my manuscript neatly tucked under my arm? Of course not, but the monkey tells me I might.

Could I extend it with a phone call? Probably. My publisher seems to like me and will certainly understand. But the monkey won’t let me try.

Am I scared of it? Not exactly. I feel it out there, inching toward me like Sauron’s armies, scorching everything in its path, but I know I need it.

I need it like I need Death itself, forcing me out of bed each morning, saying, ‘make the donuts, write the blog, tick things off your endless to-do list. Time is running out and there’s buckets left to do‘.

When I was twenty-one, I faced the biggest deadline I’d seen so far. My senior thesis was due sometime in April or May. I could see that date, a smoking rut, glowing on the horizon all the way from the middle of my junior year. So I started writing before the summer began, then through the fall, and finally deposited 400 pages on my advisor’s desk in early January. He glowered at me. “Couldn’t you submit this in the spring, like a normal person? I don’t want it hanging around here till then.” I left him with my tome, the responsibility passed.

Deadlines drive me. They drive me crazy. Drive me forward. Drive me to do more and better. So, this coming deadline, I’m pretty sure I’ll come under it and over-deliver. But for now, I’ll just have to feel it tighten around my windpipe every day. Besides, I’ve told myself all along that writing a book about the monkey was just asking for trouble, like writing with a loaded gun by my laptop, that I’d have to wrestle it away from my temple every day.

I’ve gotten loads written. At least I’m pretty sure I have. I type then toss each page over my shoulder into a growing pile. One day soon, I will push them all together, and start organizing a coherent whole. Each day, the monkey tells me that I actually have nothing, that it’s all chaos and crap, and I’m dying to look back and see if he’s right. But some force keeps shoving my head down and my fingers back on the keys.

The monkey says, ‘take a break and write a blog post about deadlines’  and I listen. But now I’m gonna stop and head back to the grindstone.

That deadline’s getting closer and I am surfing its undertow.

The limit’s the sky.

dannygregory6 Comments

It’s tempting to blame limitations for limiting us.
To wish we had more resources, more time, more help, more talent.
But there’s never enough — and you don’t need it.

Limitations free your efforts and creativity, help you avoid being overwhelmed by infinite possibilities.
If you have no rules, you have no game.
If you have no gravity, no seasons, no wind and rain, you cannot grow.
All creativity work with limits.
Pushing against them moves us to new places.
Limits build up pressure that pops us into new dimensions

Hemingway used just 26 letters.
Miles had but three valves on his horn.
Painters limit themselves with canvas size, with the colors on their palettes, with the history of the artists that precede them.
Binary code limits engineers to just 111s and 000s. That limitation produced the computer you’re reading this on.
Shakespeare didn’t use iambic pentameter just to produce plays with iambic pentameter.
He used it to force himself to use new words which expressed new ideas.

How can you limit yourself?

Learning to teach beginners. On the teaching philosophy of Sketchbook Skool

dannygregory33 Comments

What is the role of feedback in learning? Especially when starting to do creative things, things that are ultimately pretty subjective? When there are no answers in the back of the book?

The biggest obstacle we need to overcome in learning to create is the belief that we can’t. That’s especially true when we learn as adults. We have spent our entire lives believing that we cannot do this thing, and now, unless we are convinced that we can, we will never get to a point of any sort of mastery.

The most difficult and crucial lesson for beginners is the importance of failure. You need to make a lot of mistakes. You need to feel good about those mistakes and recognize that they are opportunities to improve. You can’t allow those errors to overwhelm you and make you feel hopeless.

The biggest obstacle we need to overcome in learning to create is the belief that we can’t.

The reason that people struggle with failure is because they believe that their failures are reflections on who they are as human beings. “Only failures fail.” The fact, of course, is that everybody fails on the path to learning, that failing is the most important part of any education. Researchers have shown that people learn far more from watching others fail than they do from watching extremely accomplished people do things without making any mistakes. You can sit and watch Lebron James shoot baskets perfectly all season but that won’t prove very instructive in developing your own game.

It is much more difficult to look at our own failings as educational opportunities if our egos and self-image are wrapped up in success and failure. When we watch other people fail, we are able to separate failure from ourselves, to see the failure as ‘other’ and thus look at it objectively.That is why it is generally better to learn creative things in a group environment where we can see others struggling and failing. We can see where the mishap occurred or how the problem was not fully solved.  The problem exists independently and facing it is an interesting challenge, rather than a demeaning disaster.

…failing is the most important part of any education

What is the value of a teacher’s comments to a new student?

In creative situations, where one’s ego and self-image are tied into the results of an exercise, any sort of perceived criticism can undermine that process. Because we are still so new at learning this new skill, it is difficult to accept that a mistake is not a reflection of who we are and an indication that we shouldn’t even bother tackling this lesson.  That’s why we need as much encouragement as possible in the beginning phase of learning, a phase that can actually last for years. We need to develop self-confidence and faith in our own creative abilities and sometimes criticism of any kind can thwart that  progress.

Students often ask for specific advice on how to improve their composition or how to use a certain medium more effectively, and some teachers are quick to provide lots of guidance, rules, and specific direction. I don’t know if that is especially effective. I find that most students are extremely vulnerable to the most benign sort of commentary — even if they asked for it. Simply telling somebody that they might want to consider a different composition, different medium, consider a slightly different approach, can be extremely undermining. There are so many open wounds as one is going through this creative rebirth that everyone involved must tread lightly. That includes the teacher, the student, and the relative looking over the shoulder.

I think it’s more effective to encourage students to experiment, to make more work, and to gradually developed their own answers to these questions. In fact, my experience is that almost all direct input from the teacher (inevitably an authority figure) is not particularly useful before the student has real confidence in their abilities. Instead the teacher should create an environment of trust, inspiration and fun. They should encourage the process, the experimentation and exploration, provide reassurance and safety, and do demonstrations in which they explain their own process, rather than making specific suggestions about the work the student has done. Turn the key, but don’t grab the wheel.

Turn the key, but don’t grab the wheel.

Many novice students believe that there are shortcuts available that once revealed will turn the student from an amateur into an expert. They want to know what brand of pen the teacher uses under the misimpression that the pen is the secret. The fact is that the student will do much better by discovering answers on their own, by studying the works of others, and by trial and error. There isn’t an accumulated body of knowledge that the student can acquire which will transform them. That knowledge only comes through years of work.

But that doesn’t mean the student can’t be delighted with their accomplishments almost immediately. Especially in the beginning of a creative education, progress happens quite quickly, simply by feeling empowered and free to actually make things. Sometimes that simple realization can wipe out years of anxiety around creative issues. And with that freedom comes an opportunity to continue working and develop one’s own style and techniques.

But that doesn’t mean the student can’t be delighted with their accomplishments almost immediately. 

Personally I find that students with the most technical skills alone rarely make art that I find very interesting.  Instead I’m far more excited by people who make mistakes and discover new and interesting ways to overcome them.

Learning the tried-and-true ways of making art is not necessarily the way to make great art. It is simply the way to rehash the lessons we’ve already learned, to make more art that is ready familiar. Instead you want to create new and exciting directions, to take risks, to see the world afresh, to find answers to new questions. Learning to draw is not like cooking Boeuf Bourguignon, a set of steps one can follow from raw ingredients to final delicious product. Instead it is a voyage, an excursion into the wilderness, an adventure that is mainly rewarding for its own sake, not for its results.

The teacher doesn’t have the answers.  Only the student does.