Why "Creative" Sounds a lot like "Crazy"

For most of my formidable years, I was mesmerized at how a creative soul might get so caught up in a discipline and decide that slicing an ear off made perfect and logical sense. It just seemed idiotic and self-absorbed...until I was placed in similar shoes...paint brushes in hand, a fresh tube of precious Utrecht cobalt blue oil paint and a huge, daunting blank canvas. The canvas, freshly gessoed and painstakingly tightened across squared stretcher bars to calculated perfection. To make it even tighter, it was backed with a good coat of glue made from a rabbits skin. As I scrambled to envision the life the canvas might take, it somehow seemed a bit larger in size. Sketches. I needed at least 12 more sketches. Done. I looked up and the canvas was even bigger still. If I squinted, I swore I could see the canvas growing before my very eyes. Sorting through only the cream crop of ideas teathered idealogically from a schlew of formal sketches, narrowed to rough comps and numerous color palette explorations (and a noon deadline--class time for Arts401), I decided to put sketch to canvas.

I liked charcol since it was forgiving. Charcol medium is just that: charcol, used for quick, rough, gestural sketching. It always reminds me of the resulting tangle of chalky stuff you get when a snake pellet is set afire on the 4th of July. Cool stuff, indeed. Art always seemed cool like that to me. I could always make a connection. This time the charcol was a splinter in my fingers. It rested motionless on the HAA-UGE canvas. I was officially paralyzed. Hours of hesitation, refined sketches, what-if scenarios. Then, it happened. I cringed and made the first, lonely stroke and the charcol stick dissapeared between my fingers and black powder from it streamed down the to the studio floor. One stroke didn't make the composition jump alive, so I just kept going, correcting and editing one insane fiber of unblank canvas after another. The basic idea was now on this GINORMOUS canvas--and it was white no more. It looked crazy to anyone without a Matrix-inspired access port to my brain's lobes. Paint followed, but painstakingly. I fussed, but was careful not to let the oil and pigment deter from the next layer. Hours passed as each layer crust over (a blow dryer was not out of the question).

I fussed more. Doubting every step the merit of the last brush stroke. It was thoughtful enough, but was it really thoughtful enough to merit being on canvas, let alone being called...gulp!..."art." The canvas somehow was back to a manageable size and my easle crept it's way, as if on it's own accord, to the corner of the studio where no one could see my progress uninvited. Deluged, I melted down. Had a burger at 4 a.m. Drank coffee. Beat myself up. Then it hit me. Maybe I should cut off an ear like Van Gogh and truly find, perhaps, the merit to put paint to canvas and maybe, for a brief moment, call it "art." The shearing act sheading light on my new merit and transformation. It would make what amounted to 1x2's, canvas, some oil with fancy pigments into an oeuvre. I noted this feeling for future reference as it was what I call a "jump from judgement"--one of those things I once thought judgementally of and jumped to enlightenment on the issue. It somehow explained with complete understanding why this ol' chap Van Gogh did what he did. I still have both ears.

Enough already, right? Nope. There's a connection here. I packed that lesson from life in a special place in my over-processed stew-for-a-head. As I trudged through my design career, it became clear to me that this was nothing unusual. Each moment a blank page is placed before me, it represents an opportunity to connect at an ultimate level of fulfillment which few choose to tap. But for inhibitions, everyone can perhaps connect at this level. Through this experience, I saw how every project forced me to be someone else: my target viewer. How do they think? What would they respond to most effectively? Would they like a nice PMS 612 or should I think more about the brighter PMS 383? Coated or uncoated paper? What would make them stand up and take serious notice. Ultimately, the next project would present itself bringing with it new perspectives. How was I going to respect this viewers point of view time after time? Pretty soon, you're switching characters like Sybil X 1,000, all staked on reputation. Damn well, then, that I love what I do, eh?

Often the Prozac capitalist views this behavior in designers as "artsy" (I hate that word), "off," "cookoo," or any other label often sewn to the lapel of a creative. It's not insane, it's shear talent. The more bizarre, the better...as long as the viewer finds relevance and chalks up an experience along the way. Look close for the twitch. It's a sure sign. Creatives rule. Furthermore, Creatives do it better.


Stephen Schaf, certifiable as crazy but technically "Creative Director"

-- Post From My iPhone