I shared a part of my creative approach with you in the letter Know Your Seeds, and how it is like a gardener receiving seeds of ideas and allowing the seeds to inform the gardener what’s needed to tend them. This is one way to go about it. I’m curious to hear yours in today’s Thursday Thread:
What is your creative approach?
How would you best symbolize it? (ex detective, butterfly, runaway train…)
Sometimes, I think of my process as something like cartography; I set about trying to map out the things I find compelling (for reasons I might not even know), and then I mark a road on the map to lead the audience past the landscapes that I think may have made me compelled. I really connect with a structure that I've heard Jonathan Pageau describe a few times where he lays out the importance of play; having fun with the first draft or two of any project... then coming back to the project much later with a symbolic, analytical eye to edit. I've also found it very helpful to learn all the rules I can about whatever art-form I'm working in. I have a butt-biting tendency to break rules (especially those of style and genre) and it never works the way I want it to unless I have a firm understanding of what I'm breaking and firm logos for why I'm breaking it. It also helps me a lot to move around every hour or two when I'm writing (work at a desk for a while, then on a couch, then outside, etc.) because it's always helpful to survey a landscape from a few different vantage points as you map it. This is turning into a substack article, and it mightn't even be exactly what you're after, so I'd better wrap it up. Keep up the articles and conversations, Derek; they're great! I want to hear more about Arrival!
You said it well, -allowing the seeds to inform the gardener.
I (my longings) try not to stay in the way (my mind) of where the song wants to go, when making music, “ride the wave” I try to follow it and hold up. and when say making a meal, what does it need, more salt ? Serve that which is manifesting or coming forth into being, God works in mysterious ways 😉
I steep/immerse myself in the subjects of my attention, then allow the meandering paths of intuition to help bring the imagery together.
Sometimes, I think of my process as something like cartography; I set about trying to map out the things I find compelling (for reasons I might not even know), and then I mark a road on the map to lead the audience past the landscapes that I think may have made me compelled. I really connect with a structure that I've heard Jonathan Pageau describe a few times where he lays out the importance of play; having fun with the first draft or two of any project... then coming back to the project much later with a symbolic, analytical eye to edit. I've also found it very helpful to learn all the rules I can about whatever art-form I'm working in. I have a butt-biting tendency to break rules (especially those of style and genre) and it never works the way I want it to unless I have a firm understanding of what I'm breaking and firm logos for why I'm breaking it. It also helps me a lot to move around every hour or two when I'm writing (work at a desk for a while, then on a couch, then outside, etc.) because it's always helpful to survey a landscape from a few different vantage points as you map it. This is turning into a substack article, and it mightn't even be exactly what you're after, so I'd better wrap it up. Keep up the articles and conversations, Derek; they're great! I want to hear more about Arrival!
You said it well, -allowing the seeds to inform the gardener.
I (my longings) try not to stay in the way (my mind) of where the song wants to go, when making music, “ride the wave” I try to follow it and hold up. and when say making a meal, what does it need, more salt ? Serve that which is manifesting or coming forth into being, God works in mysterious ways 😉