The Function of Creativity

A lot of thoughts on the creative process and experience have been kicking around inside my old onion head. Having just produced another collection of short plays – this year’s collection called "Life is Short" – I was able to both participate and observe a variety of approaches to crafting a play and a performance. One thing I certainly learned is that there is no single absolute when it comes to creativity. As we are all different human beings, we therefore must bring ourselves to the process with our own history, work ethic, emotional qualities, and spirit. Everyone seems to have different needs when it comes to creating a play or a role. But there are a few common aspects that all strong plays and performances share.

Passion
There is really no substitute for this energy. It will keep an artist moving through a process even when it gets tough. In our most recent collection of plays, I think I let my passion slip just a small degree. And that is dangerous.

Doing the Work
You have to do the work. You can’t do half the work and call the result of your work something great. It may have the makings of something great but it never truly becomes manifest because the artist doesn’t stay in the fight. And if passion starts to slip, the place it will show is in the total effort. This doesn’t seem to be an equation in a linear form. There is a compounding effect. For every ounce of passion lost for the project, the result will be an even greater loss in the overall quality of the work.

Finding a Good Balance
Creativity is a chaotic force. The idea that it can be harnessed or forced in any manner is simply a false belief. It is a partnership. As a leader of a creative effort it is necessary to create a fun, enjoyable atmosphere while at the same time setting a standard. This is where I seem to find the biggest challenge. It has been the hardest component to manage. Creativity needs freedom to roam and the opportunity to be constantly evolving. The people doing the creating need a certain amount of structure and that will vary from artist to artist. So it is very much a moving target all of the time. For a person like myself that enjoys the occasional sense of completion or stability, I am constantly being nudged out of rest and back into the spinning turmoil. This is not a bad thing, but it can wear me down unless I stop and understand what is happening in the moment. And, in doing so, I am left with this last important realization.

The Evolving Nature of Creativity
This is the idea that has become the most profound in my juicy mind. We are on a constant course to reinvent and to be reinvented. So any attempt to stand still for any length of time beyond a brief moment (time being subject to Einstein’s theory) is missing the mark. I’ll try this as an explanation. The nature of creativity is like a child playing a very weird game of hopscotch. In the game there is a pattern drawn out on a sidewalk, the child somewhat at the mercy of the toss of a beanbag but also left feeling secure by the lines that mark the course and the numbers that define the progression of movement. But the game it seems is being played in a multi-dimensional space on some spinning axis with levels that change with each new thought, intent, or action. The path is there. The path is changing. And when you reach the point that signals "home" you must then return back the way you came, but it’s not quite the same. That’s as reasonable of an explanation of the experience of creativity that I can articulate. And, in reality, it is probably much more true for a progression of a life than the creative process. Creativity has some other cog in the wheel. This thing called Chaos. A beautiful monster.

And now, having finished our annual shows and ready to find some sense of stability, Onion Man Productions is moving into the educational arena and I find myself right back in the midst of the turmoil. I think I just need to stop believing in the idea that we are ever at rest. Something is always churning.

I just have to keep my onion head rolling along.