The universe keeps throwing things into my path that makes me think it wants me to consider the idea of creativity and confidence, or self-belief and fear. So, while we’re all waiting for the revelation of the full complement of Battle pieces, it seemed like a good time to sneak in a few thoughts on this topic. (By the way, for anyone who isn’t already following the Battle, the first group C pieces that I’ve seen are absolutely amazing!)
Back to the topic in hand…I was multi-tasking and making a few French Beaded flowers whilst watching a series of 10 Ted talks on creativity, for inspiration, last week. The opening talk struck a few chords with something else that I had been reading a few days earlier. The wonderful beader, Robin Atkins, has published a couple of lovely books on bead embroidery which I am keen to get my hands on! In the meantime I was browsing her website and stumbled across a few thoughts she had written about creativity and fear. Robin likes to encourage people to work freeform and just explore, not be bound by rules and patterns or plans in their heads. How many of you have started on a piece of beadwork (or another art or craft for that matter), had it all minutely planned out, then found that the reality didn’t work the same way as the plan in your head, so started looking at your work as ‘rubbish’ and abandoned it?
That first TED talk I mentioned was by the writer, Elizabeth Gilbert. She was talking from a position of having just written a worldwide best-seller. To any aspiring writer, that must be your dream to reach that position, but how many think about the pressures it brings? As Elizabeth pointed out, that bestseller suddenly sets the new standard for your work, so do you then give up, saying that you have reached your peak, achieved your goal, or do you write another book and risk it being judged as inferior to your best-seller? Apparently the question that Elizabeth is now most often asked goes something along the lines of: ‘will you ever write another work that is as great as your last book?’
Creativity is something that is innate in all of us. As children we generally have a natural confidence in our creative powers and let them flow as we play. We are less bound by judgement and ideas of right and wrong. A three year old will take an empty box and pretend it is something else and use it to develop a game or role play that can keep them happy for hours. The child never thinks about whether it is using the box in the ‘right’ way or doing the ‘best’ thing with the box and when it gets tired of the game or thinks of a better use for the box, it just turns the object into something else. Sadly, as that small child grows older, it learns that there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to use and view a cardboard box and that it will be mocked or punished for choosing the ‘wrong’ way. Suddenly, that free creative confidence is constrained by fear of being judged.
Not only are we afraid of being judged by others, but perhaps even worse, we are constantly judging ourselves. It is perhaps easier to ignore the judgments of others: avoid the people who are making them and avoid asking for or reading critiques of your work, but avoiding the judgments in your own head is a much harder thing to do. Robin made the point that if one spends days minutely planning a project, whether by drawing detailed sketches or dreaming detailed images in your mind, then at the point we start to work with the beads, we have already set ourselves such a clear objective to meet that the likelihood of meeting it will be lowered. We are going to be measuring our beadwork against a perfect image on a piece of paper or in our mind’s eye and it is highly likely that our beadwork is not going to measure up well to that perfect image. This then leads to thoughts of having ‘failed’ to produce anything ‘good’. The judgments in your head can then turn this into a conviction that you are a creative failure and pretty soon the creative instinct is extinguished. Elizabeth’s point was similar – with the weight of expectation of the world upon you, how can you possibly be in the right frame of mind to create? Fear of failure, doubts in your abilities and a nagging suspicion that your previous success was just a ‘fluke’ that you can’t ever repeat must make it almost impossible to dare to pick up a pen again. Not only does all this internal and external pressure risk driving an artist into a negative spiral and a total loss of confidence in their abilities, it also takes all the fun out of the art form. For most people who pursue an art or craft, one of the main drivers is that it makes them happy. Well, how can you be happy if you allow yourself to feel surrounded by judgments and doubt and fear? – the pleasure of the activity is lost.
For me, all these fears are very familiar. I am definitely the harshest critic of my own work and I usually find that I need to put a finished piece of beadwork away in a drawer for a couple of weeks after I’ve finished it, then when I take it out, I can look at it more objectively and appreciate what I’ve achieved. I’m very lucky in that I have received huge support and so many lovely comments from other people, so the judgments to which I am subject are generally those in my own head. This begs the question of what I am trying to achieve, what I am measuring myself against. On the days when I can treat this as the biggest adventure, an opportunity to explore what is possible and just have fun creating, I think I am the luckiest person to be pursuing such a wonderful craft. On the days when the realisation hits that I have to earn a living from this, fear can take over and I am liable to start questioning my ability. I like the idea that Elizabeth Gilbert spoke about: the Greeks adopted the view that humans were merely vessels for creative muses, so if I am creating rubbish, it’s really not my fault – I just have an untalented muse! Whatever you choose to believe, if you want to preserve (and enjoy) your creativity and your sanity, don’t let the fears rule you!
