Fearless Creativity

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We've Moved

go to: www.PermissionToSuck.com

Please Change the Bookmark!

Sound confusing? Wasn't it already PermissionToSuck.com?  No, not really - I've changed hosting companies so I can finally dump the "typepad.com" as part of my URL. From now on just simply go to http://www.PermissionToSuck.com or PermissionToSuck.net .
You'll love our new home.  It's much prettier, has more information and is much more interactive.  Some of our future plans include:

• Original Video Interviews of Creative Professionals: Art Directors, Creative Directors, Copywriters, Musicians, Illustrators, and other interesting creative folks.
• Guest Authors
• Cool Stuff Store

Emma and I welcome you to the new site and, naturally, we welcome comments, suggestions and inquiries. 

Thanks for visiting - see you on the other side.

Best,

Bruce DeBoer

We're moving, go to: www.PermissionToSuck.com

Sound confusing?  It isn't really - I've changed hosting companies so I can finally dump the "typepad.com" as part of my URL. From now on just simply go to http://www.PermissionToSuck.com or PermissionToSuck.net .
You'll love our new home.  It's much prettier, has more information and is much more interactive.  Some of our future plans include:

• Original Video Interviews of Creative Professionals: Art Directors, Creative Directors, Copywriters, Musicians, Illustrators, and other interesting creative folks.
• Guest Authors
• Cool Stuff Store

Emma and I welcome you to the new site and, naturally, we welcome comments, suggestions and inquiries. 

Thanks for visiting - see you on the other side.

Best,

Bruce DeBoer

I am a professional

In my industry, we’re all challenged with the significance of being a professional. The customary retort cites the “best practices” of participants, asserts something that sounds like “relentless pursuit of quality”, or repeats some such canned jargon.  Yes, we know all that is essential to being a business leader but, frankly, it’s not how I characterize being a professional.

I show up every day; that is to say, I’m not allowed to coast. To be a non-professional is to have the luxury of care free creativity; be it when you feel it. Even with permission to suck, pros live and die with success; literally.  Clearly we need to play to stay fresh; remove our thoughts from the creative problem.  Professionals, however, do so with purpose.  Mostly, we play so we can be successful creatives later when we get back to business - it’s deliberate and purposeful playtime. 

Part time performance is out of the question.  Being a professional is a full time charge.  The only way to improve is to be as good as you’ve ever been, and then get better.  The pro across the street is putting in 12 hours a day; can you get away with 11?  Maybe. How about 6? Doubtful.  Four hours a day is not even on the map of professional success.  Fine artists may spurn the professional tag, but try finding gallery representation if working 2 hours a day 3 days a week is your chosen pace. The same rules apply; part time doesn’t cut the mustard.

If you’re a professional you are immersed in the culture of advancement.  Nothing less is acceptable. In fact: look around you, you know the players on the field, and you know those who play a better game; they’re occasionally more skillful but mostly not.  More likely, they’re fanatically obsessed with being a professional.  It’s simply impossible to compete if you’re not.

Creativity is Gray

Those uncomfortable with gray had better stick to accounting or perhaps seek a position with the Bush administration. 

I tell anyone who’ll listen that nothing I do comes naturally.  Distinctly contrary to creative savants, anything I claim as my own took work.  Math problems, once easy, have turned to paste because I’ve worked hard to make my brain work that way.  While old age is part to blame, I believe my nearly compulsive effort to avoid black and white comes into play with my mathematically challenged condition.  Creativity is about relationships not discrete facts. 

Start seeing facts as black or white, yes or no, right or wrong self contained elements and you’re creatively barren. Stay satisfied with old relations and you’re creatively inert. Most creative folks I know tell me they know nothing; they refuse to see facts other than links in a fragile chain.  Never satisfied they’re always curious; fearlessly embracing new experiences.  Look for a new link in the chain that fits however loosely.

Blocked? Show me a relationship I wouldn’t see without your help.

That's Not Art

What makes a photograph art? My quick answer: “context”; make viewers think of it as art and it is art.  Out of context, make it feel like art and it’s art.  I think the real question is what makes art good or bad?  “I don’t know art but I know what I like” is not simply a cliché. You have to at least fool some of the people some of the time.

The tail end of 60 Minutes on CBS often inspires a dash to the remote, but while surfing I floated by this short observation on the CBS News website dated June 2006:

“A writer ought to be able to write simple sentences before he tries to be a poet. I want to see something traditional that a sculptor has done - something I can understand - before he gets a license to do this. (referring to Sculptor Richard Serra's work called "Tilted Arc" that was put up at a cost of $175,000 to the New York tax payers. It's a leaning slab of rusting metal.).

Picasso earned the right to do anything he wants. His work is art whether I think so or not.

Whoever did one particular (abstract) painting suffers either from a functional disorder of the mind or he's putting us on.

What beneficial effect does this have on our brains that makes it worth putting in a public place?
I understand perfectly well that good art is always ahead of public taste. Most of this stuff is certainly ahead of my taste. I don’t like it. If I’m wrong, I’m sure you’ll correct me.” - Andy Rooney

Most of my work is applied art, so I fool all of the people all of the time or at least that is why they pay me. Mostly I produce work that even Andy would consider palpable.  But then, most of what I produce wouldn’t show well in a gallery.  Is it because it lacks ambiguity?

Below are two photographs of mine that pressed identical skills into service. Obviously skill does not make art, art.  In my opinion, emotion has more to do wi th it than anything else.  Maybe for the simple reason that Richard Serra’s work incited Mr. Rooney to write makes his rusted metal art.

   

Creative Authenticity

Back on March 14th, Seth Godin (of “Idea Virus” and “Purple Cow” fame) asked in his blog, “How much do you care about authenticity?” His first paragraph read:

Years ago, Bill Evans walked off stage at a jazz club... and the audience applauded. Why? Even though they weren't going to hear the jazz great and his group that night (even though they'd paid, hired the sitter, etc.) they were applauding how real he was. If the artist didn't want to play, that was fine with them.

Well, that’s just silly.  Bill Evans wasn’t being authentic; he was being a selfish unprofessional whiner – Ok -- a legendary talented unprofessional whiner.  In fact, he reneged  on his promise to play; Is that being authentic? Anyone who applauded must have been congratulating him on his past accomplishments because they weren’t given another reason.

In reality – his walking off the stage hurt his reputation; he just didn’t care for whatever reason.  Can you imagine if I showed up for a photography project and told my client I didn’t feel like shooting today?  Never happen, professionalism is too crucial to my business.

Yet, Seth’s post provoked thought.  I’ll reframe the question this way: “what does authenticity mean to a creative product?”  In short, it means the product can be trusted to be what it claims – it’s a genuine “fill in the blank”.  It’s honest.

Authentic means that you’re free to decide; it means you’re not deceived.  Authenticity does not mean exclusivity and it doesn’t mean quality.  If we pay more for authenticity it is because we find it necessary to pay more for “trust”.  We’ll pay more so long as we’re assured that we’ll get what we’re told we’re getting: like an insurance policy. 

Nevertheless, more important to a high demand, high quality creative product is exclusivity.  A limited run ensures value.  Restricted access to exceptional talent keeps demand high – it’s that old law of supply and demand.  One of a kind is more valuable than one of 100.

If you’re a colossal talent, an audience may even tolerate bad behavior in hopes that they’ll be lucky enough to gain access.  If you’re a legendary talent, limit access by walking off stage 25% of the time and your ticket prices may rise (or not). Plus, perhaps you could charge even more by offering insurance that you’ll actually play that night.

Check out Seth Godin’s post here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com

Enigmatic creative time

How long did it take to get that flash of creative brilliance: a week or two or three or more?  Creative time is enigmatic: what looks like an instant and feels like days, in fact, took much longer. 

I’m referring to original creativity not derivative execution.  Original creations are – in large part -- an individual’s past analogies combined to capture new forms.  Creative time is not limited to the combining of analogies but in accumulating them. It’s often called research but can resemble play.

Is anyone going to argue with me if I say that “play” is critical to the process of being creative?  Go ahead, but I’ll warn you, it’s a very defensible position. 

Now imagine you’re a business man who needs a creative solution.  You agreed to cut your deadline from three months to one, what do you sacrifice?  That’s right.  You eliminate play.  The good news is that you’re so talented you deliver great stuff on time.

The bad news is that your client’s (and your own for that matter) expectations have been set.  The result: job after job delivered using that same past analogies combined to capture new forms.  Sooner or later you run out of analogies and – thus – new forms are harder to find.  Furthermore, in using the same past analogies, your tendency is to follow previous patterns.

My point: stop playing (uh - researching) and sooner rather than later you’re producing derivative executions.  How long does it take before you’re clients notice?

The Draw of Nostalgia

My gym doubles as gallery space. One of my last trips up the stairs to sweat out the demons, I noticed a photo -- black and white, good tonal quality – the artist was well into their "immature but promising" phase. Me -- I was there once: mature, yes -- yet still trying to fill the promise part.

What struck me wasn't the print but the subject matter. The photo was that of an old dilapidated space with junk littered about weathered due to the building's loss of structural soundness. It wasn't visually attractive at all – it was nothing I want on my walls – yet, I recalled photographing such places myself. It made me wonder: "why do these spaces fascinate"? After all, an old cloths washer laying on its side surrounded by other random discards doesn't exactly compete with a Cezanne still life.

How many times have you heard, "that place lacks character". I suppose it usually means that the design is bland or human affect isn't in evidence. Perhaps "no character" means the space has no history or made of materials not found in nature; it's difficult to explain but easy to understand. The old space in the photo had tons of character even if it wasn't pretty.

Typically, I find I'm drawn to images that leave room for my imagination. Yes, they elicit emotion and arouse my curiosity, sense of beauty or teach me what the artist sees, but they also let me roam -- filled with baggage from my own experiences – through the tones and colors. I think spaces like that in the gym-gallery photo allow for just that. It's the power of the unanswered questions or maybe the draw of nostalgia - or both.

 

Put Me In The Game

Just like the woman I saw on Dr. 90210 (honestly, I was just channel surfing), who was certain a chin implant was all that held her acting career at bay, I’m visited by wanna-be fashion models looking for work when they would be better off doing almost anything else.  Not wanting a teary-eyed drama scene bumming my day, I nod my head and say, “thanks for stopping by” as I think to myself:  Who lies to these people?

Perhaps lie is overstated. It’s more like empty praise, omitting criticism or, what I like to call, accolade by proxy.  For those unfamiliar, accolade by proxy is when mediocrity is elevated to near god-like stature by those adoring fans who are either close friends or relatives needing to believe in greatness for one reason or another.  “My son can paint like a dutch master”, “My daughter is so pretty she should be in magazines”, or “my son designs great websites” are excellent examples of accolade by proxy.

Hearing the words, “you’re amazing” never seems to get old, almost no matter who utters the praise.  Praise can start careers, and mediocrity can feed families, but that’s not the point of this post.  Highly successful creative folks: Milton Glazer, Charles Anderson, Richard Avedon and the like (perhaps you included), probably share the sentiment, “if I knew it would be this tough, I wouldn’t have started”.  So can we all agree, lies and accolade by proxy have value?  Without false hope none of use would go anywhere in this business.

When do we know whether we’re mere pretenders, or if we’re “in the hunt.  Like offspring, we want our creations to have life beyone our own.  I want my photographs to bore a hole in the photosphere.  Ad folks want their ads to win awards and -- God be my pal -- be one of those, “list your favorites of the last 10 years” select ads.  Do we rely solely on praise? No -- not and remain sane, but now that we are seasoned professionals, how do we know when we’re “in the game”? 

For me, it was the first time I felt a tight gut after a fellow creative flashed me his award winning work – “damn that’s good”.  I knew I was in the game when I doubled my effort to measure up.  I was in the hunt when those affectionate words, “that talented bastard”, were on my lips just prior to retreating to my shell to research the next creative assault on my peers.  Praise is good – but if I can’t make others get a tight gut, I’m not in the hunt. 

How about you?