The Bank Billboard Got it Wrong
About Creativity
So, I've been thinking about this billboard I keep seeing when I go into Edinburgh on the train.
It’s for a bank advertising subscription management. There's a picture of a woman who has a kind of a sheepish expression. She seems surprised, relieved, embarrassed as she looks at us with her phone in her hand.
In the background there’s a small easel with a painting she's done of her cat. You could describe it as a childish painting. It's fairly basic. In front of the easel there's her cat and a box that says Art at Home week 6.
So I interpret this as she's picked up this art kit subscription. Tried out painting. Her painting sucked. So she's like, I need to cancel that subscription. Cancel that art subscription, I'm no good. There's no point in doing this.
It doesn't upset me but it annoys me because it's perpetuating this myth. The collective inner critic that says we’re not allowed to make art, try out painting, try out drawing, try out anything creative unless you're already good at it.
But the only way to get good at something is by sucking first. You have to do it so many times and be really terrible and be okay with being really terrible.
We tell each other that we have to be good at art to be an artist, that you’re only a real artist if you have something good at the end to show for it.
Then there's no point in even trying. Cancel that subscription. Negate the lovely time you had in the act of creating.
Is the goal of creativity to be good anyways?
I take issue with the billboard. Yeah, it's a silly ad. Yeah, it's for a bank. So maybe their creativity credentials aren't great (although I still believe that everybody is creative in their own ways). And I'm sure the marketing team behind it are all very creative.
I think it's worth your time and your resource to to create things. I mean, the painting wasn't necessarily a masterpiece but it was interesting and it was a representation of her furry pal.
Maybe she had a nice time hanging out with her cat and painting, getting to know the details of her cat a bit more. Okay all the details aren’t necessarily brought out in this particular painting, but maybe it helped her to see her cat in a different way. Just the act of sitting down to paint her cat helped her to notice.
That is creativity to me. The act of noticing, the act of trying to connect, the act of sitting down and saying, okay I'm just gonna do this thing for a little bit and get lost in it. See what comes through, see what happens.
This very post is an act in seeing what happens. As I drove to the co-working space I’ve been working from lately, I used my recorder on my phone to talk out this post. The handy transcription in my app made this post possible quicker than I could have listened to it (yes it required some editing). It’s an experiment! It might suck! It doesn’t matter!
Lately I’ve been…
Enjoying this post from Kirsten Powers…another Artist’s Way enthusiast!
Contemplating trying out watercolours…this class looks cool. Watercolour painting with Moira Frith, 25th June 2024 — STILL (stillflowerdrawing.com)
Hoping to make it along to something in the Falastin Film Festival in Edinburgh, running 24-26 May at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Films and events, including a very tasty looking Palestinian Supper Club. More information here.
Listening to this beautiful album while writing. The Southern Sea is so evocative. Garth Stevenson was aboard a boat for a month long trip to Antarctica with his double bass and made this music. Headphones recommended.
Happy full moon, folks! I hope it’s a magical one for you. Until next time.