Chasing Creativity

Yes, family, friends and followers — there has been a distinct lack of blog posts from me lately. I’ve been on a big deadline for a big project and I’ve had a big creative block for what seems like a really big amount of time. Are you a creative person? Have you experienced this? It’s impossible to say what brings it on and also impossible to predict when it will go away. I feel lucky that it happens to me pretty infrequently, but this also means I’m slow to recognize it and inept at ridding myself of it.

Upon acknowledging my sneaking suspicion that the dreaded creative block had arrived a few weeks ago, I had to start dealing with it. Having a creative block in your head is like having a plumber in your bathroom. It’s super inconvenient and unexpected, you’re not sure how long he’ll be there, the whole thing could end up being really expensive and it’s a part of your house you’d rather not share with strangers. Basically, you just want the guy to leave. But someone’s gotta get in there and deal with the problem! So for the past three weeks I’ve tried 1.) cleaning the house (organization seems to prepare my mind for creative work), 2.) turning off all ambient noise for days on end to better focus on the project at hand, 3.) retail therapy and a good meal out, 4.) zoning out at the pool to clear my head, 5.) sketching for hours over coffee at Tom ‘N Tom’s, 6.) gardening and watering the plants to interact with inspiring forms of organic matter, 7.) going to bed and trying to work it out in the morning, 8.) solo dance parties in my office to last summer’s dance club hits and 9.) endlessly revising a concept that was going nowhere. Working from home by myself probably hasn’t helped either.

In the midst of this, I asked myself do I really want to do this anymore? Where has my imagination gone and when will it return? Have I reached the end of my design career, having very simply just run out of ideas? Would I rather write creatively than design creatively? Do I need to go back to school and learn something else or do I just need another cup of coffee?

And now after all this, just this morning I have finally dislodged what feels like a small cork in a wall of blockage. I see a bit of light, a bit of hope in the far, low corner of my mind that color and design, as they apply to my job, are re-entering my mind. And along with this pinhole of creativity, the realization that I’ve had the right idea and intent all along, somewhere in my subconscious. The challenge was to put together and make sense of all the disparate pieces of the puzzle in order to find the direction for the project and dissolve the creative block.

Be gone, creative block. I need to get back to blogging! Tomorrow, I promise.