Realisations about creativity

“All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.” — Pablo Picasso.

All women of a certain age grow into lovers of flowers, the problem is to remember how to make our mark. This time last weekend, I was at BELTANE at Prussia Cove thinking about flowers and creativity, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you here.

In this world of clickbait lists, I know I should have called this ‘lessons in creativity’, but I do not seek to place myself in the role as either teacher or expert in this one. I am as much an explorer in this world as you. But there is something about having a belief, a relationship, or a habit existing and enduring unconsciously, and it being brought suddenly into the light. There are two emotional starbursts whenever this happens. The ‘oh, I thought that was just me’, and the ‘ah, now it makes sense’.

We imagine that those we perceive as ‘creative’ swim happily in a career which taps perfectly into their zone of genius (if this is you, congratulations but I suggest you quietly switch away from this essay, and have a look at some pictures instead) but I think that there is always more at play. Human beings have such a drive to create, and it is our ability to innovate, to create tools, to solve problems in lateral and interesting ways, to use art and story to bind tribes and cultures together, that have, quite literally, allowed us to take over the world.  In evolutionary terms, the creative amongst us thrived. We are wired to look at a piece of paper, a lump of clay, an urn and a bunch of flowers and to make something.

An aside on the creativity of gardening. The drive to create by using soil, structure, plants and trees is an unusually challenging form of creation because of the time delay between the action of our hands and the result we see with our eyes. It also involves an intimate knowledge of our own spaces, our land, what the soil will and won’t grow. It is more of a partnership and co-creation of beauty than many of the more traditional forms of what we think of a creative art. I think this is why floristry and floral design is so satisfying; it takes all the gloriously wonderful bits of gardening and distils it into something very immediate. The rest of this post will therefore be about bring flowers indoors.

But if creativity is so universal and such an innate drive, why is it so incredibly tricky? The world is full of people who would have been a great novelist if only they had got round to it, pushed through the demon of the bank page, overcome the inertia. The flower world is full of people creating installations of great beauty and criticising every last stem of them and lying awake the night before a big event wondering if this is finally the moment that they are outed as an imposter. Your household might even contain some people who think that they would be happier if only they took fifteen minutes every day to sketch, or to put a few stems of dried flowers on the table, or to journal, but somehow, that little window of spare time (and more) is swallowed whole by Instagram.

If so, you are not alone.

The flip side of creativity is vulnerability. To have an idea, a thought, a shape or a picture, form in your mind’s eye, slide down your neck, across your shoulders, take shape in your arms and then enter the world, moulded into physical form by your hands, exposes both it and you to the cold light of day.

Things I have said to myself when I have tried to make an urn that replicates a Saipua piece circa 2014 in homage to the image above:

I can’t ever let anyone see this

It looks like a six-year-old did it

I am such a fraud

I should stick to something I can do – single stem photography or being a psychologist

I should practice more, I need to do one of these a day for at least a year before I let anyone see what I make

If I photograph just a bit of it, no-one will realise it is full of holes

Why do other people make this look so effortless? What is wrong with me that I can’t make what I love?

It would be easier to just not do this

These thoughts do, of course, send me into a little vortex of shame and general not-good-enough feelings. The only antidote to these is to reframe the thoughts; I am critical because I have a good eye (even if not yet quite as good a hand as I would like). I have taste and discernment. I care about beauty and that is why it hurts when I put flowers together in a way that doesn’t feel like I have allowed them to reach their full potential. And oh my goodness, I do so care about beauty. And then I read this quote from Ira Glass. (I have shared it before, but I believe it bears repetition.)

My taste is killer.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

I also adore this video which, just to reassure you that good things take time, took a year to make.

I don’t think these thoughts are unusual. You might think that our fear of exposure is an anxiety about the judgement of others, but often, the first eyes that see what you have created are our own. And trust me, we say things to ourselves that we would never ever ever dream of saying to someone else. Not just that (although that is a very big thing), I think we see our own creations with different eyes. One of the guests at Beltane left her bowl of flowers in one place, and found it in another. It had been brought upstairs, placed on a plinth with a backdrop for photographing. She wandered in with a coffee and started admiring it. She said how much she liked the shape, the colours, how the edges of the hellebore really picked out the tulips, how it contained all her favourite flowers. I thought this was all rather wonderful and refreshing, given how systematically and carefully our culture destroys self-esteem. Then she heaved a slightly sad sigh and said how she wished she could have made something so lovely and that, even though she had used many of the same flowers, it would never have been so lovely if she had made it.

When we told her it was hers, it took her a while to believe us. And then Britt Willoughby Dyer took a gloriously lit photograph, printed it out, and the way she saw it changed again.

Such is our filter on the world. Whenever we create, there is perfectionism and self-judgement. I blame schools and their irritatingly persistent mantra there is a right and a wrong, that children should be moulded by shoulds not coulds. If you don’t believe me, the Ken Robinson Ted talk will change your view, I promise.

We start as very small children understanding the need for play. It is a drive as innate as creativity and very closely linked. Almost all mammals play, and many birds and reptiles do too. Play is a means of learning skills in a context in which the outcome doesn’t matter, and so mistakes can be made, new things can be tried, capabilities can be stretched and boundaries touched. I watch little children do this all the time. I have qualifications in understanding how play builds brain structures. I wrote my doctoral thesis on how a child’s sense of safety and their trust in their parent affects how they learn to read. And yet I have forgotten how to play.

Last weekend, we tried to remember. Someone else cooked delicious, life-sustaining meals. Someone responsible brought tea, and reminded us to drink water and to go to bed early. The barns were beautiful and the landscape was awe inspiring. Everyone played. With flowers, with charcoal, with cameras, with light. Me being me, I played with words and ideas, and talked about how brains work.

I am home now, and almost recovered. But I want play, and the joyous creativity that bubbles up when we play, to stay part of my life.

What play needs:

• A lack of investment in the end product being right or wrong – it’s about the process not the outcome. It simultaneously doesn’t matter at all (flowers are just compost in waiting) and it matters more than anything else in that moment.

• A sense of safety. A non-judgemental stance, either by singing songs to drown out the inner critic (I am certain there is a spotify playlist for everyone), or starting with the intention that this is for you, and not for sharing with anyone else. As soon as anyone else’s eyes are even a prospect on the horizon, it will change everything.

• Set the conditions – a bit of structure but not too much (I will put something together with what I can find in the garden this morning), freedom but not too much overwhelm

• Getting out of your head and into your body. Breathe into your feet, drop your shoulders, let your hands have their own intention. The only picture I have drawn since I finished my art lessons at school was after an intense session of Brain Gym, where we used physical exercises to stimulate the lateral connections between my brain hemispheres. Absolute madness. Blew my mind.

• Time. Play feels like a luxury, when our time is so taken up with other, more urgent things. The solution is toast an alarm and then hide your phone from yourself for fifteen minutes. It will feel like an age but it isn’t; it is liberation.

I am not gardening this morning, not in this rain. The weather is telling me to put the kettle on, quieten the mind, and play with flowers. I might let you know how I get on. I might not.