Hurry Up and Create Something!

Does anything about that headline strike you as wrong? I hope so.

Once upon a time, I had a TV in my studio.

It was back in the day of craft shows on cable – Aleene’s Creative Living was the most prominent. I had never been involved in crafts, and was trying to learn as much as I could about stamping and paper arts.

I learned a lot, but the thing I remember most was that every project was “QUICK and easy”, and “took no time at all to do”.

This was an idea that was very foreign to a person who was used to painting and illustrating. Art takes TIME.

Now, I was a graphic designer for a long while, and that work is done on deadline – but never “quick and easy”. In fact, most of the stress of that profession is meeting those deadlines  – producing work that can’t be done that fast because it has to be done right. Creating takes time.

There are a few things you can create  in a moment or two – like a smile, a prayer, or a nice compliment.

But not art.

The whole point of creating in the first place is the experience of it – the joy, the curiosity, the self-talk, sometimes the frustration.

Rushing through any experience means we don’t catch most of what is going on. So, if you are not going to savor any of the experience of creating something because you are racing a clock, then why do it at all?

We once had a relationship with an “artist” who was pretty much a pampered diva with a rich husband. We would never have had the relationship at all except the rich husband offered to expand our gallery space, and pay for the difference if we would “represent” his wife. Wife had decided one day to be an abstract artist – no training or background in art – just loved smearing paint around. She would brag about how she could do 6 or 7 “paintings” in a day, working on them all at once. She didn’t even realize that by saying that to prospective buyers, she was devaluing her work. Who wants to spend thousands on something that took the painter 1/6 or 1/7 of a day to produce?

Much of the value of art to people who appreciate, purchase, or receive it, is the amount of time and effort that was invested to make this beautiful thing.

So, we should not be in a hurry to make our art – even if our time is limted.

Suppose you have only an hour per day that you can devote to creating.

I believe it would be better to take weeks of those daily hours to create something that is the best it can be, than to limit yourself to projects that can be done in an hour.

What do you think? Should our creative time be the one time we can take our time?