Creative Compost

by Susan Weinberg

We gathered for the lab around a familiar face for many of us who are old timers in the Lab. Anat Szendro Sevilla, a facilitator during our early years of the Lab, led our session. This is one of the benefits of Zoom meetings. Since her Minneapolis days, her life has expanded to include three children and a sojourn in Israel. Now she is in New York, with many family demands on her time, but still the energetic and creative soul we so fondly remember. 

Anat spoke of her learnings about Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) which is a psychological approach that analyzes strategies employed by individuals who are considered successful in their field. It examines thoughts, language and behavior patterns used to reach personal goals.

We began to consider these tools by first assessing our own experience. We were asked what type of environment causes our creativity to flourish. For many, nature was a source of creativity as was music. Some needed to approach creativity through intentional thinking time, but for others it had to emerge in the unplanned moments, sneaking up on us when we least expected it. Some noted a time of day such as early morning, and more than one noted a place, in the shower, a museum and even wandering a fabric store.  Many proposed unencumbered time to think with no distractions or pressing deadlines or too tight a schedule. Others found they needed some structure with schedules and deadlines to push them forward. 

Sometimes we wanted “a room of our own” conceived of as mental space, organized space or quiet, intentional, contemplative space in which to work. Our state of mind was also important as we sought a quiet mind, a lack of anxiety. Sometimes we needed permission, often from ourselves, but we also wanting to know that it was OK with loved ones. Dedication to others often seemed to rear its head, creating anxiety and time demands that blocked creativity. And there were qualities that we sought in that space to give us room to create, a sense of purpose, freedom from judgment and a positive attitude, turning the gremlins off, those discouraging voices in our head. Physical activity sometimes shook the creativity loose and the ability to play, like a child. 

In this time of disrupted routines, we were asked to color in a circle with our routine: sleep, creative work, day job, food and leisure, exercise and other. I was stumped. I have no regular routine in this new world. I consider sleep to be work, not easy to come by yet necessary to address the rest of my day adequately. And what exactly is creative work?  If it is only studio time, I’d be outing myself as not creating in a room full of artists. For me work, the non-sleep variety, takes over and continues often until late at night. It is easier to work than to create and the hardest thing falls to the bottom. 

I was somewhat reassured when we reconvened and I learned that others also were schedule-challenged. Creativity was defined broadly and often intermixed with other activities, walking or gardening. Even raising children fell into the creativity bucket. We concluded that even if we are not logging studio hours, nothing that we are experiencing now will be wasted. We are building a compost pile which will offer fertile soil in the future. It was wisely noted that there are different stages of creativity. Before we can create, we need to fill ourselves up, to take things in. It is a circle of creating and replenishment.

We were introduced to a book titled Daily Rituals-How Artists Work by Mason Curry. In this book he looks at how famous artists answer the same questions we just addressed. You can view their time breakdowns here. I was much reassured by the fact that my sleep pattern seems to echo that of Picasso. Now if only the creative pattern did as well!

Anat shared a brief but powerful clip titled Where Did That Come From : Talks About Creativity that was created by six Israeli artists. I was struck by the echoes of my own experience, not in each one, but in many. There are many ways of exploring creativity as we learned from our own group. Some of these artists’ approaches included looking for non-perfection, rather than perfection, something that leaves an impression. Free association, following one thought to the next also played a role and when all else fails just start working. It is a process to get to a place where you let go of control and ignore the commotion around you. They also discussed blocks and talked about how we can fall in love with something that really doesn’t work. William Faulkner gave the advice to writers to  “Kill your darlings.” This artist recommended a less deadly fate, take a shower, get away from it and come back fresh. Another advises that sometimes nothing happens, but it comes eventually and it comes out of the totality of our experience.

Lynda recommended several similar videos at the Louisiana Channel.  

A source of several amazing videos, Anat also shared a clip on How To Be A Genius which busts the myth and mystery of geniuses, and it does it as a pop-up book! In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson it offers this: “In the minds of geniuses we find once more our own neglected thoughts.” The clip proposes that we often disavow our most promising thoughts because of anxiety over not wanting to appear strange. The only difference with those we view as geniuses is that they are more persistent in pursuing those thoughts and less hemmed in by a societal view. 

We closed our session with a brief introduction to the Walt Disney Strategy of what successful people do. Walt had an approach of taking an idea and breaking it into Dreamer, Realistic and Critic, evaluating it from each lens. We proposed a return visit to explore that more in depth.

We were delighted with the thoughtful and entertaining approach that Anat shared with us and I think I speak for all when I say we all needed this session. The current circumstances have been ones that require adaptation to a new way of living, disrupting schedules and life patterns and imposing new demands. For many of us it has been a challenging adaptation even when some aspects seem attractive. We are grateful to be able to continue the lab discussion and the lab community as a source of strength and reflection in these difficult times. *

*For those looking for a different perspective on these circumstances, Lynda recommends an article Why You Should Ignore All That.