Very few people will disagree about the value of creativity.
But how often do we say yes to trying the uncomfortable, unfamiliar, or things we think we can’t do?
How often do we say yes to the space and waste needed for it?
Paradoxically, creativity relies on embracing waste while not seeing that waste as wasteful.
Creativity is brilliant in the face of limited resources, because:
You can’t use up creativity – the more you do, the more you have.
Maya Angelou
“I can’t draw” is something I hear a lot. Usually along with “I’m not creative”. Or “I don’t have a creative bone in my body”.
In workshops, there’s usually at least one person who confesses to their fear of drawing or anything creative. And my very unscientific finding is that it’s usually this person that surprises – they can draw and they get rather into it.
Balls of creative dialogue
At an away-day, I ask the group: “working together is like… [what]?” and invite them to draw the “what”.
One drawing still sticks in my mind: circles, or balls as they were referred to. It was a sketch of balls with arrows, balls close together, balls dispersed, balls dancing, balls squashed through a bottleneck, balls dropped, balls running after other balls, balls at the edge, balls at the centre.
I don’t have a picture of their original drawing (- much to do with my general unease with photography in-session and a high preference for ephemeral processes) – so here’s a version I recreated for my notes:
Through their drawing, this person expressed their experiences of how the group had been working…
…it elicited a great conversation – more questions and reflections (what’s happening here..? this came up for me too…), less opinions and judgement, more freedom to converse beyond the assumptions of words.
…it was useful in holding so many different facts, stories and perspectives at the same time – a fruitful and visible container for complexity.
And yet at the start of this session, this person said they wanted to run for the hills, they couldn’t draw.
Let’s celebrate process over product
“I can’t draw” comes up so much in work. The “can’t” is rarely about the ability to draw. It comes from the perceived ability to draw “well”.
Past criticism, drawing to impress rather than to express, focus on product over the value of the process – all seem to play a part in the “I can’t draw” myth.
I wonder how that away-day conversation would have gone without that drawing.
And what else do we lose by not trying things we think we’re not good at?
Image description: photo from a radical pedagogy workshop with a background of people’s legs. On the foreground is a large orange arrow pointing right, with a yellow post-it note on top with the words: positive discomfort in resisting existing practice (teachers, schools, departments).