The importance of developing a creative habit
First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.’
― Octavia Butler
Neil Gaiman reminds us, when he’s talking about the Creative Compost Heap, that we can be inspired not just by other writing, but by other art forms, other artists. My good friend Marion Barnett wrote this, and shared it on Facebook. I asked her for permission to share with you all, as it’s very much on my mind at the moment.
Nature...
is by her very essence, an artist. And then man intervenes, adding random marks, another layer of meaning onto what was inherently perfect; who said that perfection was sterile? I love this photograph, taken in the last lot of snow; there hasn't been enough snow here to make going out to photograph worth it, just a slight sprinkling, like icing sugar on a cake. Leaves trapped in a layer of frozen snow and ice, with tyre marks lying on the surface.
I'm now wondering how to use this image. Lots of different approaches are possible, and I suspect that more than one will be 'perfect' for this photograph. For me, the main thing will be to decide what it is I want to express. There are so many possibilities here; the layers, the translucence, the colour, the feel of the piece... which suggests a series to me. I'll also use it as a layer on one of the self portraits I've been doing 'about' depression. The metaphor of being 'frozen' fits depression really well; your mind and body slow down until you can't move or think straight.
I've never believed people when they say they have no original ideas. I think what they mean is that they're not looking hard enough. And I use the word looking, deliberately. Anyone can think. Artists look, first, then think. Why not try it, the next time you tell yourself you're blocked or stuck? And watch this space, to see what comes from this image, though it's not likely to happen til after the holidays; too much to do in the way of domestic trivia and travelling.
Marion Barnett, Artist
And this is the image which inspired Marion’s thoughts.
I am intrigued by Marion’s distinction between ‘looking’ and ‘thinking.’
For me, this is a distinction that is rooted in the senses. Looking is by definition personal - it is the evidence of our own senses. Thinking too often is second hand - if only because that’s how we are initially taught. That other people’s ideas are more valid than our own.
Looking therefore is very personal, and is the precursor to the development of our personal vision.
We don’t wait for inspiration. We must constantly be open to new ideas. We must then stay with an idea for long enough for it to transform, to grow, to become our own.
This approach to our work can become a habit, but we have to be deliberate, to decide, to pay attention to the world. Intentionality is key.
The Helsinki Bus Station Theory
As we chatted on Facebook, we went back again to the Helsinki Bus Station theory, developed by Finnish photographer Arno Rafael Minnikken, who was worried earlier in his career that he was not producing original creative work.
In writing, as in other art forms, we prize originality and we start out, as beginners, despairing of our own work which is often derivative.
I remember my own early stories - I wrote pale imitations of Malcolm Saville adventure stories when I was eleven. In my teens I attempted Georgette Heyer (still a totally not-guilty-pleasure, even though she was an insufferable snob). Later, I wanted to emulate short story writers HE Bates and Angus Wilson. I still have a terrible story somewhere that was inspired by Angus Wilson - in which I pompously wrote about people who were nothing like the ones I knew, who inhabited a world I only knew existed through fiction and film.
How then do we learn to use our own voice? It’s all about staying on the bus.
There are two dozen platforms [at Helsinki's main bus station], Minkkinen explains, from each of which several different bus lines depart. Thereafter, for a kilometre or more, all the lines leaving from any one platform take the same route out of the city, making identical stops. "Each bus stop represents one year in the life of a photographer," Minkkinen says. You pick a career direction – maybe you focus on making platinum prints of nudes – and set off. Three stops later, you've got a nascent body of work. "You take those three years of work on the nude to [a gallery], and the curator asks if you are familiar with the nudes of Irving Penn." Penn's bus, it turns out, was on the same route. Annoyed to have been following someone else's path, "you hop off the bus, grab a cab… and head straight back to the bus station, looking for another platform". Three years later, something similar happens. "This goes on all your creative life: always showing new work, always being compared to others." What's the answer? "It's simple. Stay on the bus. Stay on the fucking bus."
A little way farther on, the way Minkkinen tells it, Helsinki's bus routes diverge, plunging off on idiosyncratic journeys to very different destinations. That's when the photographer finds a unique "vision", or – if you'd rather skip the mystificatory art talk – the satisfying sense that he or she is doing their own thing.Oliver Burkeman
Keep on keeping on. Stick with your ideas and themes and shower them with time and care and attention. And carry on with your writing. Practice might not make perfect - as my favourite tutor at Liverpool University was wont to say, “No one in the arts deserves an A grade. We can never achieve perfection.”
That may seem discouraging, but actually it is very freeing. I finally managed to finish writing my first novel when I read in an interview somewhere (I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten where), a quotation by Randall Jarrell - “ ..a novel is a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it.”
And at the beginning of our writing journey it may well be that our work is derivative, that we don’t have our own voice yet, that our ideas lack individuality and originality.
Practice may not make perfect, but it does usually bring improvement, and the more we work at it, the more we become ourselves.
It’s a bit like friendship, I think - it’s impossible to pretend to be someone else for any length of time. Eventually our real self comes through - and in this case that means our own voice, our own ideas, our own themes and our own material - if we stay on the bus!
Ann
With a big thank you to Marion - who is the best of friends, and who has done more than her share when it comes to shoving me back on that bus!
Let The Dog See The Rabbit
For further reading
The Helsinki Bus Station Theory - Finding Your own Vision in Photography Arno Rafael Minkkinen 2006
Oliver Burkeman on Helsinki Bus Station Theory - this is just inspirational. I share it again every time it comes up in Facebook memories.
Marion’s blog, artmixter There’s lots of interest here. I love how Marion talks us through her process, how she approaches her art, and how she stays on that bus. Just scrolling through some of those past posts make me want to get back on the textile arts bus again.
These Letters About Art are also a useful resource