art

In Praise of Sh*tty First Drafts

Art + Creativity, Thoughts + Life

I’ve been thinking about the seductive power of “perfect work”, a fantasy which lives just out of sight of the creating mind. That near-future vision will drive you in circles if you let it, spinning round and round like a compass so close to magnetic north that you can’t see north any more. We call it “finished work”, and it’s the enemy of creativity. How on earth are you to work through the muck and the mess of creating, how are you supposed to see the present moment clearly or take the risks you need to, while the fantasy of some perfect finished work hovers over your shoulder? No wonder we often struggle through the middle stages of making: we’ve come down from the giddy, immaculate high of our first flawless lines, and now we wallow in error (or so we perceive). Redemption lies in finishing the work, whatever that means. Correcting artistic transgressions? Erasing our sins?

I think we’ve got it all wrong. Redemption lies in making: making marks, messes, and mistakes. Redemption lies in shitty first drafts.

When writing this and other essays, I lie on the floor and talk through my ideas as they come. I don’t write – I make words out loud, one after the other, and then some more. I rest my phone on my chest and record whatever comes up off the top of my head, then transcribe from spoken word to the screen. Ninety percent of what I say you’ll never see. I will trim, turn, chop, rearrange and murder my darlings. It’s worth the carnage, because the greatest hurdle to doing any of this was to start.

A writer friend of mine once told me, “Writing is like choosing constipation as your vocation.” He’s not wrong.

Sitting in front of the screen with my words facing me down, I stall and stall again. But, when not confronted by those words, my speech can be my friend. It rolls me forward moment by moment. It allows me to respond to the sound of each word just laid down with another new word, an interaction in surprise, in discovery.

Apply this to any creative practice. Painting, make a colour swatch. Sewing, stitch a sampler. Find whatever presents least barrier of fear or hesitation, be it speaking, writing, smearing, dancing. Do what you will, but make. Make. Make.

Make, for twenty minutes or an hour, or if you can, three hours, and if you commit to three hours it’s best not to see what you have made. For if you can see it, what you have just made will reflect to you what you have not accomplished. Put it away. Best not to see clearly what you have made, for it will tempt you to revise and make better, and this is not the time for that.

To be clear: if you already know every step of the way forward, that’s another story and we can talk about that another day. But in this quest for creation, perfection with its glaring mask of judgement is the enemy. It has no place here.

When first making, make messily. Make marks you can retrieve but need not face at the outset. There is no disgrace in making what you did not intend to, no shame in mistakes. Seek perfection later, when you know the steps. For now, a shitty first draft is exactly what you need.

You can listen to the shitty first draft of this essay, if you like. I recorded it on my walk, in the elevator, in the entrance to my apartment and while lying on the floor with my cat beside me.

An Art-Full Life

Thoughts + Life

What does it mean to live an art-full life? I believe that to live artfully is to live intentionally, to strike a balance between creativity and functionality. The choices we make about our environment, our practices and our personas are intimately tied to our material culture. The way we feel in our social circles, our homes and our skins is both expressed THROUGH and influenced BY dialogues between our visual objects and our psyches, an incredibly rich & nuanced conversation of symbols and aesthetics.

So the question arises: how to make those choices? The question “How to live a good life?” becomes a lifelong creative project: “How to create what is both true and functional?” How to live your life artfully?

Let’s look at four ways for creativity, expression and function to strike a resounding chord.

Skins

Our clothing choices are about much more than just trends or utility. They’re a second skin that we get to choose every morning, a chance to reinvent ourselves day by day through colour, shape, theme; what we choose to cover or reveal; what social microcosms we reference and reflect – honestly, I could write a whole other post about the language of dress.

My point is this: when we choose what to put on our backs, we’re making a choice about which version of us we’re presenting AND inhabiting that day. That’s why favourite clothes are as potent as they are: they’re a symbol of something we value, integrated with the self, worn intimately as a chosen skin.

Before getting dressed, try taking a moment to set an intention for the day, and then choose an outfit that feels aligned to it. This choice will quietly remind you of your intention and support it for the rest of the day, in a way that’s entirely yours.

Moments

It matters where your eye lands.

It matters what’s in your field of vision: greenery or asphalt, order or clutter, an empty space or a full one. It matters because our minds are constantly running thought processes that we’re barely conscious of, if we’re even aware of them at all, and those processes interact with our sensual experiences. There’s a reason so many of us get moody in the dark days of winter, and why a walk in the woods leaves us feeling refreshed.

One way to channel this tendency: arrange a few vignettes around your home or office, especially in spots where you’re likely to see them through the day. Give some attention to the overall shapes and colour combinations, and think about what the components mean to you personally. Essentially, you’re creating strategic art moments in your space.

Agency

It’s powerful to have something you can control, however small. Even more so when you don’t have control over very much.

For example: as kids return to school this autumn, they’re facing a whole new rhythm and set of demands, different from what they’re used to, with the added challenge of talking through masks and trying to stay 2m away from their friends.

Small touches like personalized locker decor go a long way to helping your kids feel at home in a new environment. And when they can’t share their hugs with their friends, they can at least share their tastes.

Marks

Humans are tellers of stories: we write, we dance, we ululate. We leave our marks on cave walls and box cars. We express outward and explore inward using creative media: early mornings with a journal, late nights with whiskey and paint. Days of posting, photographing, commenting and calling. We are creatures of expression.

Making marks and telling stories takes us to the highest peaks of our skill and down into the most primal valleys of urgent, impulsive release. We rage. We revise. We see, hear, respond to the cacophony of our senses and what others have said, enter into an ecosystem of artistic endeavour. We join the dance.

At the end of the day, the most visceral way to live a life full of art is to make art.

We are artists from the moment we are born, and we never cease to be. We may mute our voices, but those voices never disappear, not entirely. Living art-fully, living well, requires that you heed that voice, and guide it.

Make your marks.

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