Thinking Aloud: Creativity and the Act of Making.

Here's a bold claim to start the blog off: I’ve recently come to the conclusion that reconnecting with our innate creativity is vital for a healthy society. There, I said it. This blog is a space for me to explore and think aloud about the intersections between creativity, citizenship, good design, beauty and being human. I hope you'll join me for the ride.

Creativity and The Act of Making as an Ancient Rite.

I have been fascinated by the need to make, to create, since my mid-20s, when I started to question what was driving me to stay up to the early hours carving, conjuring jewellery. Transforming simple materials into beautiful, balanced forms. 

I named the collection I made in those early hours Ancient Rites because in that quiet darkness, I felt, in ways I couldn't explain, connected to those makers who came before. Maybe it was sleep deprivation, but what I was doing felt like it was one of the most essential aspects of what it is to be human: the act of making. I named pieces in the collection after totems, neoliths, and artefacts. I was fascinated by what compelled ancient man to make these monuments. Beyond religion, did they feel the same need that I was feeling? Why did they make?

The Disconnect

As my jewellery business flourished, this primal impulse to make waned. I had ideas, but they didn’t flow through me in the same way. It felt like creativity was coming from a different part of me; the work was good, but affected by knowing someone was watching. I had customers, PR agencies, and buyers keen to see what I’d come up with next; I had price points and value propositions to meet. The connection with something beyond me was gone. I found it easier to design and be creative for other people. Give me a problem, I’ll solve it! Tell me you want to create a world of designs that link sci-fi sea goddesses that also have a hint of 90s rave scene energy? Great, got it, can do. (By the by, this is a genuine job brief, and yes it was brilliant to work on.) 

What Is It To Be A Maker?

Fast forward 10 or so years, and my understanding of creativity has evolved. I’ve had children, left the fashion industry and started exploring what it is to be a maker, a creator in a non-tangible realm. This led me to a world of design thinking, service and research design and then onto design for social good. All nebulous terms and sectors, but spaces where I’ve found myself pulled back to my early obsessions with creativity and the act of making. This time, though, framed through the lens of agency, citizenship and ownership of our collective futures.

Why This Blog Exists

My notes app from the last 4 years is full of random thoughts jotted down in the gaps between making dinner, settling sharing conflicts and sorting the laundry. I recently took the time to go through them; in all honesty, I was looking for content ideas to do with service design for LinkedIn posts. What I found was years of musings about creating. Lightbulb moments where I figured out my creative process, thoughts about the link between seeing ourselves as creative beings and consumerism, and ponderings on the impact of Western art being dictated by the ruling classes on the subject class, the devaluing of folk art. Is beauty important? What is it to make and create to a fixed brief? Is that true creativity? The list goes on.

If I’m not making sense and these thoughts sound jumbled, that’s because they are. They are a knot of “what ifs” and “huh, I wonder”. I hope that this will be the space to explore them. I’ve ummed and ahhed about starting this project. I’ve been hoping that I would find the answer, that things would slot into place, and I could write a couple of neat posts with clear theories about the nature of creativity and being human, but I just have even more questions.

Make It In The Open

So after a bit of thought, in honour of Good Services, I’ve decided to “make it in the open”. Also, it is my experience that sometimes, you just need to get started and see where the journey takes you.

I believe that every human is innately creative and that to disconnect from this part of us is harmful to our mind and body, our environment and our society. So I will end this first blog as I began it; this is a space to explore and to think aloud. I’m interested and open to learning about every aspect of this subject in the hope that maybe we will find some common truths to help guide us through the choppy waters of modern life.

Desk shot from 12 or so years ago in the heady days of creative flow.