Free Idea Factory

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.

Of what use is it to apply the same thinking to creative problems all of the time?

Think of a creative problem you have been trying to solve for a while. Write it out and formalize a strategy. Then allow a friend, colleague, or someone you respect with knowledge about the subject to interpret the problem for themselves. Don’t tell them what your plan of attack was. Then, with their permission of course, implement their strategy instead of yours, despite your initial feelings about it.

Operating in unfamiliar territory can certainly be uncomfortable, but it can also produce great results in terms of creative development. And collaborating and dialogging with creatively oriented people and groups can certainly open you up to a whole new world of possibilities.

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
- Albert Einstein

Get a box of chalk and travel to an area with a lot of pavement and sidewalks. Use the chalk to alter the naturally occurring cracks in the pavement. The fact that the weather will destroy your work can free you from worrying about archival materials and formality. The novel environment enables you to be open to new processes and perhaps increased creativity.

Variations:
-Figurative images
-Abstract images
-Straight lines, curved lines, contiguous lines, broken lines, etc.
-Incorporate text

Leaving the environment you are comfortable in creates a sense of disequilibrium and opens you up to learning new things, see Outdoor Leadership: Theory and Practice By Bruce Martin, Christine Cashel, Mark Wagstaff, Mary Breunig