Creativity

Hoarders

Garth Beyer

282559483_5fcf4b47da_z

I have a great idea for a television show. It’s going to center on the life of hoarders.

Not any hoarders though. A special kind of hoarders, the worst kind, actually. (Yes, I’m well aware there is a show called hoarders that is centered on the life of hoarders.)

See, the type of hoarders who pose in the current television show and keep everything they touch, they are fighting the psychological battle of either holding on to the past or the concern of needing something for the future.

The type of hoarders I want to film are those who keep all of their art to themselves.

Those who have composed hundreds of songs but stick the sheets of music in the attic.

The types of hoarders that have 14 manuscripts tucked in the back of a drawer, telling themselves they need to be edited again before they are brought to a publisher.

The hoarder whose basement is filled with incredible knickknacks that no one will ever see. Or the hoarder who has a room filled with colorful handmade glassware, not for sale.

These are the hoarders with the serious problems. It’s one thing to be attached to a material item, it’s another to refuse letting anyone be attached to your material item, your art.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Be A Selfish Artist

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

What Size Would You Like

Garth Beyer

6087792522_32cd365468_z

I’ve had it with all the different cup size names (e.g., trenti, kid, venti, grande, sixteen, large, extra-large, power, original, regular).

Here’s a quick solution: Let people pick out their cup as they get in line.*

Sometimes being creative is a set-back. It’s fun to make different names for sizes (whether they make sense or not), but not everyone can keep up. If you had the option to appeal to all customers and lose some or appeal to all customers and keep all, it’s clear which is the better choice.

Yet, in an effort to stand out, businesses sacrifice some customers that, if time would be taken, could otherwise be kept. Note, the best kind of creativity is the uncomplicated kind.

 

Stay Positive & Have Fun But Keep It Simple

Garth E. Beyer

*The take-it-too-far part of me would insist that you could give customers markers to color their cups while they wait in line. Have them write their own name on it too. Starbucks never spells it right anyway. (But they do when I say Voldemort. -sigh-) And yes, there will be a line at a place where you don’t have to figure out what cup size to order, ending up feeling like an idiot when you order it wrong.

Photo credit

Profits Without Production

Garth Beyer

6780825886_e4aa68e7ca_z

I got turned on when I saw Krugman’s NYT’s post, “Profits Without Production.”

I thought to myself, “Finally, he sees it too!” Alas, while I am sure he would agree with me, he sees profits without production in a different light.

Nevertheless, since you cannot read what I thought he wrote. I’ll write it.

It wasn’t until the start of the industrial revolution that “production” became mechanical, void of emotion, and downright dirty. Prior to the industrial revolution, to “produce” held power. Anything that was produced contained a bit of the person who produced it.

Production took hands (many of them), impromptu thought power, and personal insight (not mechanical). There were technicalities before there was anything technical. Then, once the industrial revolution hit, “production” took on an entirely new meaning.

It’s as you can expect, recall, and still see industries trying to continue. During the industrial revolution production was being carried out by robots, assembly lines, programmers, and chain reaction contraptions. No grit, no personality, and no heart. The only connection was between two wires. Profits came from faster production. As a result, the process to creating goods was a stale, monotonous, banal one.

Now, though, we’ve entered the post-industrial revolution which has – I don’t want to say returned, but has reconditioned “production” and given it an all new meaning. Production has maintained its sense of efficiency and multiplicity while involving the human spirit, a person’s passion.

This post-industrial revolution is the collaboration of the assembly line and creativity. However, not in the sense that one piece of creative work is repetitively created, rather, art (whatever your art may be) is continuously created, day in and day out.

For me, I write something different every single day. Alisa Toninato, instead of molding a typical metal pan over and over, sculpts something different, again and again. Now, those who are profiting the most (financially and internally) are those who have salvaged the key parts to production, but, generally, tossed the industrial revolution concept away.

Profits don’t come from production, they come from the interaction created from making more art. And making more art comes from doing enough weird things until they get noticed.

 

Stay Positive & Potatoes Pototoes, I Suppose

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

Like Clockwork

Garth Beyer

4031808720_0992349760_z

You can correctly assume an action some will take based on what you know about them. They have a routine, a personalized search engine, and a tight group of actual friends on Facebook that you can discover simply by looking at their activity.

[Likes, shares, and wall posts occur because one person’s status shows up on another’s feed because that person has visited the other’s profile to see what they have been up to. The system recognizes this and gives you more of what you want.]

The trouble is that it’s difficult to become part of someone’s clockwork. You have to tell a story that involves them, that excites them, and get’s them to participate in the long tale [pun intended]. You have to have something original to offer. You have to care, deeply. In fact, there’s so much you have to do to become part of someones clockwork, that I actually don’t suggest it.

People ask how many views I get on my blog, who my audience is, and if I get hurt when someone close to me doesn’t read what I write. My response is that I write to be here when they want to know something, when they need a push, when they finally have a question that their clockwork friends can’t answer. When someone interacts with a single post of mine. That’s a story that resonates more than the one I would be forcing them to want to hear.

It’s difficult analyzing and incepting people to accept you as part of their clockwork. It’s more socially profitable to keep working on your art and being available for those who are searching for you. [Just one more reason why I can’t stand when people hold back their art.]

 

Stay Positive & Tick Tock, What Have You Created Lately?

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

A Couple Types Of Creativity

Garth Beyer

Creativity

The first is unexpected; the type that just comes to you out of nowhere; that moment when you have never been happier to have a notepad in your pocket, or a paintbrush in hand, or pieces of your art around you.  Hirschman would argue that this is the best kind of creativity.

Hirschman wrote:

Creativity always comes as a surprise to us; therefore we can never count on it and we dare not believe in it until it has happened. In other words, we would not consciously engage upon tasks whose success clearly requires that creativity be forthcoming. Hence, the only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding.

The second kind of creativity is a lot like hitting your head against the wall in hopes you will knock out a creative idea. Or, less physically painful, you toy around with different tools and dies you have at your reach until something starts looking like a creative piece of art.

I fancy this second type of creativity. It allows for frustration, it tells whether or not a person is determined and passionate or not.

And heck, if anything, I always say that some people hit their head against the wall just because it feels good when they stop. It’s a win-win situation, whether you end up creating something or not.

 

Stay Positive & If You Don’t Try, You Fail

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

Bubble Wrapped Creativity

Garth Beyer

You don’t know art until you’ve done/seen/tried something crazy.

Pop art for instance?

It doesn’t take a lot to be creative. It just takes a little something here and a little something there and a little something to combine them.

“Something,” in this sense, really meaning “anything.”

 

Stay Positive & Combine What You Can Then Combine What You Can’t

Garth E. Beyer

Two Types Of Art

Garth Beyer

The first is risk-free. It’s the type of art that you can destroy without second guessing yourself; the type of art you can return, get your money back, or just give away to someone else because you’re not attached. This type of art is noncommittal.

But it’s still art. In fact, it’s invaluable art.

This type of indefinite art is about expression as much as it is exploration. We can peck at it, flip it, and stick the end of our tongue to it to see what it tastes like. This art is about discovering through creating what we don’t understand. This art is to be played with.

The transition toward the second type of art is made through what all art shares: facing unresolved issues – the meaning of life, why this and not that, where do I belong.

Popular art – the second type of art – is when a creation contains answers.* The second type is about sharing findings, sharing answers, sharing your conclusions – egotistic or not. This is the most difficult type of art. To creat the first type, all you need to do is turn rumination into something tangible. For the second type of art, you have to commit, you have to accept all the criticism you will receive before you receive it. What ruins art creators is when they underestimate the amount of resistance they will have to face, internally and externally. The second type of art is simply art shared.

*[Right or wrong, they are answers. Popular art becomes such through connection, acceptance, and reality. It may not be the right answer for you, and it may be the wrong answer for her, but, essentially, it’s an answer for someone.]

 

Stay Positive & Create A Little Art. One Type Or Another

Garth E. Beyer