How To Become A Creative Genius… Seriously!

“I am not creative.” I said. I said it again and again, because it was patently true.

I was perhaps 10 when I said it first… to myself. But as a teen, I KNEW, I was not creative. And I said so to other people.

I could draw. My one claim to a talent of any kind. I did many things, I played the viola, drew and painted well (I was not a skilled artist, merely a talented one), I cooked a little, sewed a little, knitted and crocheted a little. I did not do embroidery. I did a little woodworking and soldered wire art. But none of those things were TALENTS. They were just THINGS WE MADE. Or WORK. Work was NEVER a Talent. Only my drawing was considered to be a talent.

I saw people around me who WERE creative. They poured new and original ideas out of their heart, making it up as they went. I SAW that. It was pretty obvious to me.

“I am talented at many things, but gifted at none.” I said. I must have been about 14 when I began to say this. “I am not creative at anything.” I said.

I could follow patterns, not just follow instructions. Sometimes I could ALTER a pattern, either with instructions, or based on what I already knew. I fashioned my hair in ways I had seen and in ways I made up… but I made them up simply because I didn’t know how to do it right. I painted by copying and could do so fairly well, but I would never be a Grand Master, I could not paint enough to make a living, and would never be able to turn out work that fast, or do it every day, I thought. I did so very many things from patterns and by copying other people. But I had no ability to make things from scratch, or to devise a new version. Invention? Forget it!

“I have lots of talents, and a few gifts. But I have no real genius for anything. And I am simply not creative.” I said. I had children about me, and computers scattered everywhere, and I was confident in my ability to solve problems in my specialized disciplines. I could throw a shirt onto the floor and cut out a copy, I could alter it to a new design, and sometimes when I was shown a new project I saw not the project as it was, but as I wanted it to be. I cut the fringed T-shirt at an angle instead of straight. I added a ruffle to the top of the blouse. I put a crocheted dickey into the neckline of a shirt. Not because I saw that someone else did, but because I simply WANTED it that way. I sang, I wrote a song or two, crafted a few good poems and a lot of bad ones, and wrote my first book which was never published. I learned origami and folded cranes and irises. I made soup without a recipe. Not terribly GOOD soup, but edible and usually tasty and filling for a large and growing family. I learned to make bread VERY well, and eventually conquered scratch soup. But this is not creativity. It is simply necessity.

My children were more talented that I was… we counted more things.

“She is my genius software designer.” he said. And my clients sometimes said I was a genius when I recommended a solution no one else had. But I wasn’t, really, and I wasn’t Creative. Not really.

I was just PRACTICED, and EXPERIENCED. I was KNOWLEDGEABLE about what COULD and COULD NOT be combined thus, or so. I invented my first invention, and it sold very well. I wrote book after book, first instructional, then fanciful. I learned to optimize painting artwork, and became fast enough, and skilled enough, that I COULD have made a living from it if I could have sold them fast enough (many obstacles to that). And I wrote a book about it. I learned to can things I never thought I would (tamales, very good beans, venison, and other things). These things, you see, are not REALLY Creative, except the Invention, and that was just some parts that were repurposed to a new function.

Now, I laugh.

I was creative from the beginning. I followed an age old pattern of creativity that makes geniuses of schlumps who can’t do anything but follow instructions from someone else who IS the genius… or sometimes not.

First, we listen and follow instructions to do a thing we do not know how to do.

Rembrandt says every single artist begins with an old plate for a palette (today, a paper plate), with bits of cheap Tempera paint, and an old somewhat stiff paintbrush that nobody else wants, to paint upon a piece of cardboard, a thing someone has shown them how to paint. And they do it badly. But they do it. Eventually, if they practice, they can do it RIGHT.

We are CREATING though, and that makes us CREATIVE. Oh, only in the LEAST RESPECT, but Creative none-the-less.

Second, we learn to follow a pattern, because we have LEARNED the SKILL of following patterns… the norms, the language, the process of a pattern in THAT thing. We don’t need someone to EXPLAIN it to us in person because we can follow a written pattern.

Manet says that the skill of following a pattern is the FIRST skill we learn in becoming a creative genius, because it teaches us not only to imitate with accuracy, but eventually to TEACH with accuracy.

Didn’t see that one coming, did you? And our ability to CREATE, has grown.

Third, we learn to ALTER a pattern, and this may be WITH specific instructions elsewhere that we apply to our pattern, OR it may be something we do just because we KNOW WE CAN, because we are applying rules or guidelines we have already learned.

Bob Ross says that everyone can create if they have a pattern and an idea of how they want to make it a little different. Change the color, make one element different, change the shape of the canvas, paint it on the refrigerator, whatever makes you happy.

And just like that, we are Creative. And we finally SEE that our effort to LEARN SKILLS is making us able to BE Creative! But only a little!

Fourth, we become practiced enough that we can take all our skills and mix and match them, and assemble them into something new and original.

Vermeer says it is something we are NOT Born with! It is something we SEEK, and PURSUE relentlessly until we accumulate enough skills to know HOW to be Originally Creative.

About this time, someone may call us Gifted. But we aren’t really. We are merely PRACTICED, and MORE EXPERIENCED.

Fifth, we produce something that makes us the person the learning people come to. They know WE KNOW. They all think we are REALLY CREATIVE, and one or two think we are Genius. But WE KNOW, that we aren’t really. We just taught ourself to THINK in a way that re-mixes all the variations we know into something we don’t know quite yet.

Van Gogh says that at this point we are no longer afraid of what is inside us, we’ve learned to let it out even when it breaks the rules that other people have devised to make the incomprehensible understandable. What is deep inside really IS unique, and often perceived of as Creative. Or Garbage. It all depends on the viewer. He says he should know.

This is my favorite quote. Because it speaks of ME, and MY Creativity, that is uniquely mine. I cut Origami paper out of Christmas wrapping paper. I cut my own hair, using a method that nobody taught me, I just learned it, and it looks good. I put seashells in my paintings, and sometimes I paint them first. I have developed several painting methods of my own, that nobody taught me, that create a specific look. I developed standards for the small business web arena that others were not using, and used them successfully in my own business. I created a recipe for Knockout Corn Chowder that really is… and it is all my own recipe. I add bacon fat to the soup, most of the time, and bacon fat has been one of those things in my life that CHANGED how I eat, and allowed me to start healing and losing weight. I drew a scribbled cherry tree on my insulated lunch bag, and sponge painted floral designs on four of my shirts. All things that are uniquely mine. Things I had to bring up out of ME to do, and things that required COURAGE to do.

Somewhere about this point we know we are skilled and have some success at something that reinforces that judgment of ourselves. And that is really nice. But I’m not a genius designer, I’m just someone who takes what I know and USES it.

Georgia O’Keefe tells us that she was the LEAST creative of her sisters. In 1923, she was awarded the Creativity Center’s Award of Merit for that year (they gave only 1 each year), and she wondered why they would think she was creative. She just copied things, she said. She cropped them, changed the colors, sometimes made them a little fanciful or stylized, but she wasn’t creative at all!

So if you are trying to become a creative genius, just keep learning, and practicing. And learning and practicing.

I can make a really INCREDIBLE soup now. Savory, layered with depths, meaty and hearty and satisfying. Pure genius! And it is MY recipe.