On creativity and designing

A friend of mine said that she is amazed by my productivity, on how designs just seem to pop out of my head.
For me it’s just something that happens, just like sun rises in the morning (though today it’s hiding behind rain clouds).

I think that for the person oneself creating something, in my case cross stitch design(s), is like having red eyes (no, no, no… mine are blueish grey). For most people it’s something mystic, but for the person with red eyes they are just eyes, they have always been there. They may be unique, but are just eyes nevertheless..

Admittedly I am lucky because I’ve been dragged to museums, historical sights, theatres, exhibitions and galleries since I was a tiny toddler. I was lucky to get in a school where I was taught about the designing, all the tiny bits of it which do matter – and I was taught that creativity is just like any other tool, it gets rusty if it’s not used, that creativity is just another skill, you can’t master it if you don’t practise it on daily basis. (As someone has said: Creative process consists from 99% of hard work and sweat, and 1 % of inspiration.
My intention is not to diminish the gift of creativity, but it really is just another tool: we all have different kinds of tools, some are better crafted than others, some are tended with love, some are abandoned. But we all have that little spark in ourselves, we just need to feed it and listen it.) I have been lucky to have supportive friends and family members who have believed, and do believe, in me. And I have been lucky to have friends who have been the reason for me to get onto this road, and that I have friends who have also been there and helped a dream called Periphaeria Designs to come true.

Anyway, personally designing is usually the easy part in the idea’s way to finished design. Somehow those little squares just make sense, they just want to group into odd forms, they want to develop to other things… and sometimes they want to keep me awake whole night long.

If you ask me one necessary characteristic of a designer I give you mania(/hyperfocus). You don’t have to have it, but some manic tendencies are really G-d sent when you have tons of ideas, but your body wants to go to bed, or when deadline is approciaching fast and you are only half done with everything. That is when you bless that tendency – even you sometimes curse it when you keeps awake at night because you can’t sleep in middle of an idea storm.

I admit that sometimes I do wonder where it all comes from, but lately I have realised that I can’t keep my eyes open without absorbing influences from my surrounding world. Nowadays I can’t even watch movies without thinking “now that is one interesting form…“. Actually I find it rather amusing even though it can be annoying if you concentrate on thinking of some form instead of following the story.
I also admit that I have my moments of fear, because losing what I have found would be a great loss to me (even it is also a great stress factor it gives more than it takes).

~ by Lady Periphaeria on June 18, 2007.