Creative Alchemy

Just the Two of Us: Making creative partnerships work

What’s different about creative partnerships? When two creative personalities get together in a commercial environment are the challenges and issues they face unique?

With the end product closely tied to self-esteem and identity, it’s no surprise that creative partnerships are intense affairs. Control issues and vision clashes abound and the industry divorce rate is high. The good news is that none of these problems is insurmountable. In this post I will explore some of the key issues affecting creative partnerships, and offer advice for anyone who is currently in a creative partnership, or considering entering into one.

Creativity - Accident or Design?

As usually happens, my life this week has conspired to test out a previously academic theory around creativity. In other words something went horribly wrong, without warning and I found myself watching helplessly as my carefully built up structures fell to pieces around me.

What surprised me the most in the aftermath of the big important thing being lost, was a sudden explosion of euphoria, followed swiftly by a sense of freedom, and quickly after an avalanche of new ideas, solutions, and possibilities. The worst thing had happened, someone had moved the goal posts without my permission and my response was a pure rush of creativity.

No failure only feedback

What do we do with things we don't need any more? Ideas, images, thoughts, approaches, names, abandoning the ones which don't seem to work is an essential part of the creative process, if we don't leave something behind its pretty impossible to move forwards at all.

We go through a similar process in other areas of our lives. Some people move on quicker than others, leaving redundant relationships, jobs or homes without so much as a backward glance as soon as they lose their sparkle, become too difficult or get boring, or simply because something better turns up which distracts their attention. Others resist change desperately, or simply hoard everything, accommodating the new alongside all the accumulated junk of years. There's security in accumulation but it's easy to drown completely in all the excess information.

Postcards from the edge

This week I've had several conversations about belonging. Or rather conversations about not belonging. Being marginalized and excluded or simply not fitting in, not knowing where to fit.

The culture we live in is defined by transient populations, wars, intermarriage and the cross-pollination of religious ideas and practices from around the world, so the question of identity is complex.

When I’m asked where I come from I find it difficult to answer, having South African parents, great grandparents from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and my family currently being scattered across at least 6 different countries in both hemispheres. I’m British, but only by one generation, the rest of me being a puzzle in the making, and who knows where I’ll end up?

The Business of Being Creative: set some effective goals and start getting what you want

Working with creatives and creative business owners I’ve found that the biggest barriers to success are not usually those involving creativity, but rather finding the time to be creative. The day to day practicalities of running a business, or prioritising your workload can create a level of stress and confusion, leaving you exhausted and unable to see the way forward.

Effective goal setting is one of the most powerful tools to combat the confusion. By knowing what you want, its easier to define the tools and processes you need to get you there, leaving you free to concentrate on the business at hand with clarity, direction and renewed motivation.

Goal setting can be really tricky but there are a few practical ways to make it a bit easier. One of the most effective ways to do this is to use the SMART process.

The Mysterious Time...you've tried doing something, now try doing nothing

In ‘Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about the period of incubation being perhaps the most important and essential aspect of creative process. Out of the stillness of this ‘mysterious time’ flow the connections and relationships which when fused, will lead suddenly to the eureka moment, clarity as if out of nothing, when least expected.

Effectively this means that what we perceive as being the work of creativity, the brainstorming, research and experimentation which occur as we explore or invent the problem in hand is merely the start of the process at a conscious level, whilst the real magic happens as the problem goes underground, into our subconscious and becomes creative alchemy.

When to play

Watch a child playing and you won’t see judgement, you won’t see cynicism and you definitely won’t see them worrying about what works! What you will see is a complete absorption in process, and an infinite array of possibilities for what might happen, and how, and why, and what new possibilities might be created
along the way.

I remember waking up as a child and feeling the sheer excitement of what was waiting outside for me. There were so many things to do, and see, and destroy and build again, and throw, and feel and eat, and put in my hair and find and lose and set on fire. There was never enough time, and there were never
any self-imposed limits. It was all about playing and trying and being.