Free Idea Factory

I’d like to set up a large city block with subsidized artist condos. We bring in a select group of musicians, painters, graphic designers, videographers, etc. and subsidize their rent in exchange for periodic help with projects. There are regular meetings, both structured and informal, where artists can collaborate on projects. Also in this building are practice space, art studios, a print shop, recording studio, etc. for artists to do their work. Pro-bono projects are taken on from time to time for goodwill and to create community awareness of the artist community.

Also, this is no broken down hippie co-op*. It’s a nice, modern, sustainable & green building with accomplished, motivated people in it.

I would live in the Penthouse and call on artists from time to time for help with projects.

*I like to make fun of hippies, but they’re alright with me.

hang small mirrors from the ceiling and also words on strings. let the breeze blow through the room and see how the reflection changes. wriite a poem as you walk through the words and mirrors

Following posts about aiding the creative process. My old life-drawing teacher made an exercise, whereby the model moved to a new position every 20 seconds. The students had to produce a new image for each pose. She went on to say that if you saw someone jump off a ten story building, the truly confident artist would have drawn them before they hit the ground.
I suggest an excercise , whether artist or writer, sit in a cafe or restaurant where you can see people walking past through the window. Sketch, or write a description phrase, for the next person you see each time you look up from the last - as many people as possible over ten minutes. You should end up with a notebook full of material. An excercise in beating hesitancy and building confidence.

this idea is based on a few things: Susan G. Wooldridge’s book “Foolsgold, Making Something into Nothing and freeing your creative progress” (Harmony Books, 2007) and also the collage boxes of Joseph Cornell…

take a small box or bag out with you on walkabout. collect stuff that resonates and make a collage box of your own. photograph it. do it daily for a week. go to different parts of town or country.

post the results on a blog and tell us all about it

Work in your least favorite medium for two weeks, no matter how annoying it may be initially. Again, disequilibrium allows for increased learning and growth, see Exercises in Creativity #1.

-If you paint, take up sculpting
-If you write childrens stories, dive into sociological research
-If you are an actor, take on a character you despise or are indifferent towards
-If you aren’t anything (everyone is something, don’t worry, you can figure it out), consider involving yourself in a creative endeavor, who knows what you’ll discover along the way.

A black t-shirt with white printing, in that all too familiar font from the ridiculously regularly ripped-off slogan Got Milk that reads simply: Got It.

if you have or can get a good digital recorder, you can do it that way:
carry it around with you and record the various whooshes of water and traffic, clicks and clacks and whacks of movement…

if you have no recorder, spend a day focusing on sound as you wander…translate it into text.

In literacy training I learned a technique to help new writers overcome their reluctance to write, or their discomfort with writing (it differs from speaking or reading because it’s a commitment to the action that is not so easy to retract–if you say or read something wrong you can always backpeddle with “Oh right, that’s what I meant to say.” but if you write it down, it’s there in print and much more difficult to gloss over as anything other than a mistake), and I thought it could be a good method for beating writer’s block for some people (though, I don’t know for sure, I’ve never actually experienced writer’s block myself, and can’t even imagine what it would be like…I need a writer’s cork most of the time) because it gets the brain into the writing state of mind in a way that’s completely non-threatening. It gets the engine started without the worry of where are we going. The technique (like all good techniques) is very simple. Fill a page with writing. Write anything at all. Write your name, write the letter “m”, write blah blah blah, write words you see around you, copy out of a book within reach, write anything until you fill a single page. Then throw it away.

start a poem or story or doodle what have you and mail it to buddy a. buddy a will add a bit and pass it to buddy b and so on. could be just two people or more…

a variation of this is to play the surrealist exquisite corpse game thru the mail…via postcards or letters.

i love the idea of mail art.

Take something that you really value, that you personally have made (a poem, a painting, a sculpture, what ever…) and break it. Discard it and don’t look back. You can always remake something (though you will need to learn to become comfortable with it being slightly different (for better or worse).

Often times I have found that clinging on to ‘a masterpiece’ (and most of the time it’s really not, though it may be a personal triumph, which is surely nothing to discount) inhibits you from producing 10 new things of which 4 might be to your liking. And maybe 2 are of equal or greater merit than the first object you parted with. That’s a 50% increase in masterpieces!

When we hold onto past ideas too tightly, it may very well inhibit us from coming up with new ones. Creativity involves a need to develop. Being creative involves an element of never being completely satisfied. That’s not to say that the process won’t be rewarding though. Nothing is ever really done in my opinion as far as art goes. But it can be developed enough to share with others. When that’s the case, finish out the body of work or move on to the next idea.

This idea was born out of experiences I had with Skip Sensbach of Green Dog Pottery in Dallas, Pa. He was the one who introduced me to breaking pots, sculptures, and a host of other things I liked. My favorite piece that I broke was a 2 foot tall wine cask that was shaped like a womans leg with fishnet stockings.

Variation:
To reduce the wasteful element of breaking something of value (which I’m personally OK with because of what it may yield) you can give away the object as well. Or you can break it and reuse those broken pieces to make something even cooler if your up for the challenge.