Activity (or inactivity) and the Muse

[Wikkit]

Greetings,

What have your experiences been with the correlation between daily activity and your creativity, especially if your daily activity is very anti-creative?

Last week, after about six months of 'unpaid vacation' (unemployment), I began a job doing assemply line type work. It's mind numbingly dull and has no creative or decision making aspect to it.

Since then, I've done more cooking than I had done in the previous month. Cooking is my creative activity more often than doing comics, since I have more natural ability at it. While at work, though, I find myself writing webcomics in my head. I'm going to have to start taking a notebook so that I can write them down at break time, and I'm going to have to get Flash so that I can make them as I imagine them.

What I'm getting at is that while I was unemployed, I didn't express my creativity much, even when I had a whole lot of time to do it. Now that I have less time to do things, I find myself doing things more.

So, have you guys been more able to express yourself when you had less time to express yourself, or is it an issue of being doing something that gives you ideas for comic strips? Finally, does a less creative day job make you more or less creative at night?

[Fortunato]

Right now I'm only an entry level creator, but I've thought about this for a while too. I think that when you're unemplyed you notice the dry spells more easily than when your body is occupied. The trick I use (as an unemployed person) is finding a suitably mind-numbing activity and doing that, and hoping that I get some inspiration from it. Or I put on some music I like and turn it off when I get a good idea.

I used to be a dishwasher, and that is EXTREMELY mind numbing. But I think I can honestly say I didn't really have more good ideas then than I do now. This could just be me, though. I also find myself more and more desperate to find something to do when unemployed, so when all unproductive activities are complete/boring (TV, videos, video games) I find myself drawn to create more and more to make myself feel as though I've accomplished something (unfortunately, posting on boards also makes me feel like I've accomplished something, so they take away from my time). I'd probably do my best work alone in a bare room with a chair, a desk, and an old fasioned typewriter (and a couple hundred sheets of paper; I like to believe I'm a writer, since I can't draw).

[Randy]

There are lots of resources for creativity, just check the art section of at BN. Some magazines that I read that help are HOW and Print. I find that Adbusters is good for getting inspiration for random ideas.

One technique that I find helpful sometimes is to force yourself to stare at a piece of paper for ten minutes WITHOUT drawing anything. Just stare. I find that my mind starts to wander and viola, a drawing is started.

Or just start doing comics about what you've done that day. (I have plenty of those in my sketchbook.) It will get you used to producing work and eventually you'll have an idea that you WANT to work on.

Just some of my random thoughts before I start my day at work.

--Randy

[InkAddict]

Mind-numbing work stirs creativity. I feel it is probably because not only ART is escapist.... the creation of ART is escapist too: it brings you into a world of your own(creation), thus giving you an alternative to something boring.

I myself am extremely creative when doing something boring, but when I'm not bored and have my mind set on creating, I like to distract myself as much as I can from the act of creation itself. The more noise, music, people,... the better my mind runs, and the better I create/draw. When I isolate myself, often the act of creating starts to get a "job" feel, and I get bored, which lets my mind wander towards things or creations that are not useful at that point... Like working on a Sci-Fi story, then dreaming about dragons, or 19th century crime novella's...
hmmm...guess I'm just a little weird

[Rip Tanion]

I realize some of you out there might frown on this, but if I take a couple of bong hits, my brain gets very creative. I'm NOT advocating everybody out there to go out and buy a bag of weed, mind you, especially you minors out there. I'm just telling you what works for me.

However, truth is, that for many, chemicals are catalyst for creativity. Some drink booze, other do harder drugs. Personally, booze gets me drunk and stupid, and hard drugs always frightened me. But I discovered back in art school that marijuana gave me a creative drive (I was also reading a lot of drug related comix like the Freak Bros. back then). So did LSD, for that matter, but I've only done that a few times, and not at all in the last ten years. I've heard to many stories of guys going wacko from doing too much acid.

I know a lot of you are going to disagree with me out there, and I can understand that. It doesn't work for everybody. Again, I'm not telling anyone out there to go and take drugs. I'm just relating my own personal experience.

And if any of you out there are in law enforcement, I never said any of this.

As for unemployment, I found I had a lot more time for art and being creative when I wasn't working. I thought tending bar in a local dive on the Upper East Side of Manhatten would give me inspiration, especially because of all the characters who used to frequent the place. However, the late nights left me exhausted, and I found myself more interested in hitting on the female customers than in furthering my art.

[Tailsteak]

I haven't got a job at the moment, and that means my life is a shambles. I can't concentrate on anything. I have barely enough time in the day to check my email, let alone work on my comic. I'm definitely not producing my best work now. In fact, I'm barely producing any work. I'm definitely not job-searching.

I need order!

[Craig J. Quack]

I hear you, Tailsteak.

I lost my job about two months ago and, while I've been halfheartedly seeking employment, I've also been trying to keep working on my personal projects. Doing Dada on a daily basis has been one of the things that has kept me going, but that's not enough to make me feel productive enough to enjoy doing other things (like listening to music or watching movies -- I have such a stack of still-wrapped DVDs just waiting to be watched, and there are more coming out all the time, only now I can't allow myself to buy them). I need a larger project to get fired up about.

Like others, I have found that when I'm busy (like, say, when I was in college), I'm more productive. Plus, the more I get exposed to, the more experiences I have to feed my writing. Right now, all I'm getting exposed to is a lot of television, most of it bad.

And that Evian baby commercial is inescapable.

[InkAddict]

As for the drugs, I have tried some (alcohol, cigarettes, even a little dope), and even when my creativity was stirred a lot (like with alcohol or pot), it didn't make me more "able": I had ideas but no drive nor talent to put them on paper adequately. Also some of my ideas were plain bad, but my foggy judgment didn't mind.
School benches work nice for me, as do difficult books.
'The Name of the Rose was superb, as was Rushdies "satanic verses"... The more complex the thing I'm reading/following ,...the better are my imagined worlds.

go figure

[Fortunato]

Hey rip, it doesn't matter how old you are, smoking dope is no less illegal. But if you're a minor, you might get a smaller penalty. SO all you minors out there, smoke dope now while the penalties are small!

I envy that Rip, I wish I could get creative like that when I got high. The ideas flow too fast for me when I'm high; I can't keep track of them. Booze doesn't work either; my nasty inner demons come out when I've been drinking and turn even a pleasant piece of wrting into a nightmarish emotional assault (it's already happened to me twice, and, trust me, it ain't gonna happen again). It's not because I don't LIKE being high or drunk, it just doesn't work as a creative state of mind. I've tried writing high and it just doesn't work.

But, hey, it just occured to me, do you think the art form could have something to do with whether work/non-work or drugs affects your creativity? Maybe artistic creativity comes more easily high, or during drudgerous tasks, wheras literary creativity comes more easily sober and bored? I know a lot of musicians like to get high before they begin a project (some of the biggest dope advocates around are famous musicians, like phish or Snoop Dogg). I dunno, just a thought really.

[InkAddict]

Maybe creativity has nothing to do with exploiting talent?

I mean, what if dope, getting bored or good music is ok to get the creative flow going, but you need some real talent to turn that creativity onto paper!

Rip gives the example of the dope-inspired Fab Fur Fr eak Bros, who weree very "inventive" but could easily be drawn ON dope.

I envy the creativity, but some creativities need a special talent to get onto the paper.

Example: Can't see Schuiten draw his architectural prowesses on dope, even if the ideas might come to him on drugs, etc...

Exploiting the talent can come naturally, as with the Fabulous Furry Freak Bros, but sometimes it's something totally apart:

First you get "creative", then you start "creating" what's in your head!

What my point is: These might be totally different states of mind to some artists.

I myself create easily, but have to "force" myself to start drawing, even if I like drawing once I start! Hell, I LOVE it!!!

I only need to get in that "special" mood.....

[Greg Stephens]

...wheras literary creativity comes more easily sober and bored?

Hemingway would disagree.

[InkAddict]

Hemingway was one of those dudes that got their ceativity AND writing skills when drunk.

Other writers like to be drunk when inventing stories and characters, and sober up when writing the actual stories.

The excellent short-short-short-story writer Fredric Brown didn't like to write, so to get HIS creativity rolling, he took long night-bus rides. In the dull silence of night buses he started imagining the stories he would commit to paper. Then, getting home, he quickly got behind his typewriter and finished the actual "writing".

...two sets of consciounce!

(You should all read his stories, there's some genuine "comic book short story"-type ideas in there! It's beyond excellent!

[catgarza]

well, i guess you all know where i stand on the issue of drugs and creativity...

but, it's definitely not for everybody, that's for sure...

[thrdgll]

What we artists don't want to accept is that creativity requires outside stimulation, a balance between intake and output. We are inspired creatively by our dull day jobs simply because we are engaged in some other activity. Personally, I find the "inspiration" induced from 12 hours of sitting at an art table to be highly suspect. The brain needs physical activity (and a change of scenery) to generate new ideas.

I've often wondered about how best to stimulate creativity, right down to wondering if better ideas come with my shoes on or off! But the only formula one can develop for creativity is a lack of formula. Seeking out new environments seems the easiest solution.

As for the daily grind, there is something of a zen-like state that can be attained through repetitious activity, such as stapling papers or rubber-stamping cards all day. This can leave the brain open for new ideas or for problems to be solved in that seemingly miraculous way we sometimes experience. Yet, the same repetition can drive some folks (especially men, as science has shown) into sheer insanity.

With the evil weed, you must always question if these "good" ideas are only recognizable as such while under the influence. Often they are, but keep in mind that, while high, any old sack of crap can be "the best potato chips I ever ate, dude!"

Ashley

[catgarza]

watching my cat give birth in a box at my feet while i finished up and posted this week's INKWELL was truly inspiring!

[gazorenzoku]

I find that if I inject a few ounces of gasoline right into my chest cavity, it not only gives me a nice buzz but also really opens up the creative doors. I recomend it to everyone, and also invite any agents of the law to come and beat the **** out of me. I'll bring the drinks, you bring the sexy night sticks...

hmmm, could I be on a pure gasoline high right now, at this very moment? You be the judge...