July 2007

While at the International Society of Glass Beadmaker’s Convention (ISGB Gathering), Milon Townsend addressed attendees with a talk on creativity. While there are many ways to approach creativity, I thoroughly enjoyed his talk as he stated that creativity was a skill; that if creativity weren’t a skill it would mean that you are born with it.

I often think in terms of books. That is, I get an idea and think, “I want to write a book about that some day.” Thinking that way, while it might not ever yield a book, keeps me gathering information on the subject. I also come up with titles for these would-be books. The one I’m leading up to here is titled “Methodical Creativity” and has some concepts similar to what Milon spoke about in his presentation.

I’ve tried to talk to people about this concept and often got blank stares. I was beginning to think that creativity was unique and isolated from person to person. While it is a very personal process, I am finding that I am not alone, and that creativity can be explained, taught and learned…in a methodical way.

Books that I have read about creativity talk about it in a different way…a more ethereal way. ‘My way’ is more methodical yet still freeform. It is not something that one is born with, it is something that one can learn if they are willing to work on it. One principle is:

Bridging:  Make lots of work until something new presents itself to you.
Yes, presents itself to you. While you might start in a particular direction, be open to what comes into your reality and follow the process. If you are always set on a strict, linear design process and are unwilling to stray from it, you will miss opportunities around you. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have design time or production work.

Making lots of work (even production work) yields better creativity by freeing your mind. If you are doing the same thing over and over your brain becomes less involved in concentration-type activity and opens to that other place where new ideas come from. The whole right-brain/left-brain thing. In this repetitive state, creative thoughts will present themselves to you. Be sure to have a pad and paper around at all times. (Another of Milon’s tips, and one that I bet a lot of us already practice). If you have the time, try the technique that has come into your awareness right then and there to give it more permanence in your consciousness.  If you like it, incorporate it and make lots more with that new technique added and until yet another new idea presents itself.  I call this BRIDGING.  Before you know it, that simple bead that you started out practicing on will bridge itself right into a new style that is all yours.

Increased Efficiency and better quality of work.
Not only does making a lot of work help you be in a place where you can allow new ideas to emerge, but it also hones your technique. The old, ‘practice, practice, practice’ that you hear so much about. The great thing about it is that you can be working one technique over and over and over and when you’re done, you find that you are now more proficient in another area as well.

New ideas presenting themselves to you while repeating processes, coupled with increasingly refined skills and technique  is part of what I call “Methodical Creativity.” It happens over time. Sometimes gradually, sometimes in great leaps. But if you follow the method, rest assured that it will happen.

I can hear some of you in the back grumbling, ‘Making lots of work will waste materials. It will cost money. It will waste my time.’ You are absolutely right and that is what I would call ‘suffering for your art.’

Unless you have orders to fill that you can use as your practice time, or the work that rolls off of your fingers is immediately saleable, doing lots of work will take time and money/materials. But in the end, it will set you apart from others and you will get better at your craft more rapidly.

Set aside practice time.
It doesn’t have to be at a scheduled time but a time committment for a few hours a week to ‘power create’ and just try ideas one after another on a small scale. Don’t worry about whether you are wasting materials or time. Use a similar but less expensive medium or scrap pieces.  Just work and explore.
Another thing that Milon talked about was limitations or necessity forcing us to be creative. One of my first good designs (my Monet beads) came from not wanting to waste materials while experimenting. I wanted to learn about layering colors but I didn’t want to use my ‘good’ materials for something that could really turn out awful and really was just a study. I took pieces of glass rods that I bought from other glass workers for a fraction of the retail glass price (some was even donated because it is considered scrap) and, on a day when I wanted brainless work, I welded them together in similar color families until I had regular size rods of varying color. I used those rods, exactly as they were to build a bead…one color being applied right on top of another.

Not only did I learn a lot about layering color, which was my initial goal, I was turned in another direction that led me to explore using the bubbles that were formed from where the welds were on the rod (often considered poor technique) and actually exploiting that imperfection to my advantage. It also led me to work more with enamels in a new way in order to give more depth to the layers of colors.

I have also had days where I spent my handful of experimentation hours only to yield garbage. You will too, but when you finally get to that design that you love, you will have forgotten all about the struggle and it would have been worth it.

What do you think?  Do you work this way? Leave me a comment and share your own process of try this one and let me know how it goes.

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