Guest Post: Part of the Process

(image from the Brighton Craftaganza flickr group)

Yesterday I went to the Brighton Bloggers' Bash, a meet-up arranged for local bloggers to get together at Super+Super HQ, make contacts and discuss their blogging hobby/job. I met some nice people including a lovely lady who doesn't currently have a blog, but is a prolific sewer and would love to start a sewing blog (having had a couple of false blogging starts in the past). However, she feels something was creating a barrier, and she with so many sewing bloggers out there she might struggle to find a unique voice and she is also in awe of many of the writers of the most popular blogs. 

This morning I chatted with Patty over coffee about this lady's dilemma. He had some (typically) insightful things to say on the subject, so I asked him to write a guest post for my blog to share them with y'all. Check it out peops, this is the good shit...

One of the most common reasons people give preventing them from doing something creative is that it has already been done. Lots of people are interested in doing something such as making garments, starting a new blog or any kind of creative activity. Many people feel daunted by the plethora of existing blogs and huge range of existing makers in any given field. It is as if there should only be a certain number of people in any creative field, as if it were a party in a small house and could get too crowded.

I believe this is a manifestation of a fundamental misunderstanding of what creative activity is. This misunderstanding is deeply rooted in our culture. We learn it at school and through the media. We are taught that creativity is the expression of a higher ideal in a finished object of great beauty and skilled execution. This is wrong in approximately fifteen different ways. It is complex but basically it comes down to perception of value.

In our society value resides in finished products. Art is one category of the production of products. Craft is another. We look with lust and desire at finished products and believe they are created by specialists using talents beyond our mortal capacity to understand. We are thereby separated from our own creative power which is what makes us depend on shopping to satisfy all our psycho-spiritual needs.  

From outside the house party of creative practice looking in we see only finished products. We mistake the product for the practice. We are excited by what is happening but like Peter Pan we find we cannot fly in through the window ultimately because of our own self limiting beliefs. It’s important to understand that EVERYBODY feels this. Even those who appear to be such ‘natural’ creators, those that have identified themselves as ‘creatives’ early in life have had some crucial intervention, some teacher or parent who told them they had talent (thanks Mrs Cheeseman) so in a way they are beholden to the same false idea as all the rest anyway.

Of course praise is not enough. It will get you through the door but you won’t stay if you don’t find the secret, and the secret is process.

The only difference between the maker and the aspiring maker is that the maker realises that the process is everything, the final product is merely an effect of the process.

Process is everything. Originality is a fetish that only makes sense in terms of intellectual property law. Forget about originality. Even if you took an idea verbatim from somebody else, your process of making it would be unique, the journey you took would be of value to you and by extension to those around you. This is especially evident in craft where similar patterns produce uniqueness and process is celebrated, where bloggers share the process of creating and pontificate on how it changes them and their lives. This is what ‘Art’ wishes it was.

The value is in the process and the finished product is a continuation of that process, affecting the lives of others, that scarf you made for your dad lives on in the process of his life. Value itself is a living process not to be confined to a number or a thing.

We are conditioned to understand the final product as the container of quality. In order to believe this we have to believe that each category of products is produced by specialisms we cannot comprehend. This is where ‘talent’ comes in. 

Reinforced by the talent shows that now dominate our TV screens the biggest of all lies is talent. The very idea that some tiny percentage of people ‘own’ creativity by some genetic twist of fate is laughable. There are no ‘creative people’. Creativity is our species defining characteristic. We all need to use it, it is a psychological prerequisite for a happy life.

Anything can be learned by anyone.

So don’t stand outside the party waiting for an invitation. Don’t be confused by the dazzling heights that other bloggers and makers have achieved, look at the processes they are engaged with. Each process is unique, each one fills a vital gap in that person’s life, without this deeper engagement they would not be able to continue the work for years and years.

Success, slick production values, money, attention, these are all byproducts of a process of self discovery that will last a lifetime. And they may never come. If the process is right for you it won’t even matter anymore. Any stage of that process is as essential as any other. That includes the first six months however awkward and frustrating they may be.

More than anything else consider this: we are in a big phase of change, we are renegotiating our cultural values and we need everybody to join in the debate. This includes you. We need your unique process, we need your unique contribution. Making stuff is cultural production. Nothing is trivial.

Now does the house party still look full to you? Ring the bell then go through the door.

It’s all part of the process.