NOV 19th 1-2-3: Art: Constant Creative Proactivity
1: Constant Creative Proactivity ( 3 minute read )
As an artist a few things I’ve found to bear many creative fruits, is a level of constant critical analysis, an immense hunger for understanding, and a lot of questions.
This led me to realize that, in many situations all I was doing was being proactive as an artist to capture, organize, distill, and express my ideas or findings.
Thus for the sake of simplicity, I’d like to call this ‘Constant Creative Proactivity’ or ‘CCP’, a concept that I most definitely refine more in the coming years.
What is ‘Constant Creative Proactivity’?
To be ‘proactive’, is to intend to cause change, rather than just reacting to change. It’s as, James Clear, would put it, “getting one percent better each day” so that after a year “you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by that time”.
To put this into perspective for us as creatives, proactivity is getting to your desk every day to practice your fundamentals, plan out your next piece of work, and to get going.
It’s learning to create a plan, and trust the process.
To practice ‘Constant Creative Proactivity’, is to flip a switch in your head. To take in all information, whether it be visual, audio, a smell, or a flavor through a critical lens.
To be one that questions the what, why, and how.
What is it that made you feel something?
Why did it make you feel something?
How did the creator come up with this?
One practicing ‘CCP’ puts consistent effort on Capturing ideas, thoughts, and inspiration. Organizing what had been captured. Distilling the great things they’ve captured from the not so great, and Expressing those ideas into full pieces of work.
And they do all this, 24/7.
Constant Creative Proactivity should lead you to see the world almost like a child.
Every detail being meticulously analyzed as if you’re seeing it for the first time.
All emotions evoked, being questioned to the nth degree for peak indiscriminate understanding.
All with the added proactive ingredients of Capturing, Organizing, and Distilling your findings for later Expression.
That is what ‘Constant Creative Proactivity’ is all about.
Why should is practice this ‘Constant Creative Proactivity’?
The simplest answer to that question is, to see if it works for you.
I mean, there’s really nothing to lose.
Though I will say, I bet you will find value in ‘CCP’ as this is something both me and my brother have been doing for quite some time now and has proven to bear many, many artistic fruits.
More so, It is a process we have cultivated from studying what many great writers, artist, and musicians do for their creative processes and distilling all that down to some of the main similarities we’ve noticed between all of their processes.
Now to give you a more serious answer on top of that.
As creatives, running into creative block is almost like a lifelong affliction you’re going to have to learn to live with.
Some days, even weeks or months sometimes, you’re going to have a bad flare up of this affliction.
It can be a real pain in the ass one day, and utterly demoralizing and discouraging the next.
I’ve found that focusing too much on the block is the worst thing to do.
The best is to focus on maintaining forward momentum and staying agile, while watching out for fatiguing yourself too much on one thing or another.
Balance is key, and I’ve found that this framework I’ve given you here has proven invaluable to maintaining balance within my creative process.
So give it a try, keep what works and drop what doesn’t, but I can guarantee that you’ll find some use in practicing ‘Constant Creative Proactivity’.
2: Creative Prompts From Us (ex. Write a short story, a poem, a song, or draw a quick illustration of these! Let your imagination run free.)
I. Look around your room, find the most interesting object within it, and bring it to life. Name it and give it a personality, backstory, and motive. Now use this character to create.
II. There’s a duplicate version of yourself roaming free. What parts of yourself does this dupe embody? What does it signify? What is it doing?
3: Inspirational Quotes From Others
I. “If you get one percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done.” - James Clear, American writer
II. “Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” - Mario Andretti, American-Italian former motorsports racing driver
III. “To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed through words, so to convey this so that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.” - Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer
Thank you so much for reading!