The Creative Instinct

In my previous post I talked about the way that unfettered ‘butterfly’ creativity can impede your growth and success. If you want to develop your creative muscles and give yourself the best chance of getting noticed you need something else, something more. This is what I call Courageous Creativity.

Courageous creativity is about maintaining your focus for longer. It’s about following your interest, your passion, your curiosity - and finding out where it will lead you.

It’s the difference between shining a torch around the entrance to some enticing cavern and deciding you’re going to do some proper exploration. Guess which one comes up with the hidden treasures?

Why do I call it courageous creativity?

Because for many people - maybe even most people, it takes a certain amount of bravery to embrace it. For the lucky ones it comes without a second thought - but if you harbour doubts about your ability or your right to be successful - or you struggle with a fear of failure - then this really is courageous creativity that we’re talking about.

What does courageous creativity look/sound like?

I’ll tell you what it looks like - like this:

And this:

And this:

Sophie Ryder’s art often (but by no means always) reflects a fascination for the hare, the Minotaur and the dog. It’s her willingness to really explore ideas like these that have led to a constant development of her work.

There are all sorts of reasons why Sophie Ryder’s work is a good example of courageous creativity.

For instance, I love Sophie Ryder’s work. You may not.

Part of being courageous is accepting that there will be people who don’t like your stuff. It’s absolutely and totally unavoidable. The importance of your audience can vary massively and is dependent on your medium and your personal goals - but courageous creativity is about focussing on your most important audience of all - you.

Then your work develops integrity and connectivity. And whatever your definition of success is, these surely have to be two of the main ingredients. I’ll leave integrity for another day. Connectivity I’ll deal with now.

Connectivity

Connectivity and cohesion come automatically once you start to follow your interest and really develop your ideas. It’s that connectivity between each new piece of your creative output that brings out the richness, depth and quality in your work. It also allows you to discover that most prized of things - your own unique voice. These alone are powerful enough reasons why courageous creativity is worthwhile.

But there is one more advantage, and it’s a real biggie.

If Sophie Ryder had allowed her butterfly creativity full reign - if she’d let go of her ideas and passions as soon as she’d begun to develop them and kept moving on, who would have heard of her?

Instead, as you develop your themes, your preferred media and your abilities you also develop something else - a body of work - not loads of different bits of work (no matter how good) that people can’t get a handle on - but enough connected stuff so that people can start seeing what you are about. Enough work to exhibit, or record, or perform.

And that, of course, brings us back again to why I use the term courageous creativity. Because what if after all that focus and energy your work doesn’t cut it with others?

Well, that’s a toughie for sure. I could tell you that in following your own interests and curiosity you will enjoy the creative process much more. I could also say that courageous creativity is wrapped up in learning about yourself and your art. You keep learning and keep growing. You gain in satisfaction and improve your chance of success.

And then there’s this - there simply isn’t a decent alternative.

Unless, that is, you are genuinely happy with constant novelty and keeping your creative impulses as the lightest of amusements (in which case, get off of my blog!) And even if you are convinced that is the case for you, I’d bet there’s a fair dollop of unacknowledged fear and doubt at the bottom of it.

Does this mean the death of the butterfly?

No! You need your butterfly creativity up and dancing. Look at Sophie Ryder’s full catalogue and you’ll see it has its share of butterfly footprints. Sophie does not limit herself either in subject matter or medium. There’s clearly a valuable place for the butterfly too. It brings the fresh ideas, the sideways leaps and the new starting points for exploration. Just make sure it’s working for you, not against. The courageous butterfly, perhaps?

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It was some weeks back, on looking at Sophie Ryder’s work that I was prompted to write about this. It’s taken me all those weeks to form my thoughts enough to express them in this post and the previous one. I know there’s lots more to say on this and I’d very much appreciate your feedback.

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Check out Sophie Ryder’s work at www.sophieryder.org and you’ll find a fantastic catalogue of her work, including the images above, at www.sophieryder.com

Images are by kind permission of Peter Osborne at Osborne Samuel