There’s freedom in creativity.

A funny thing that happens when you work around creative people is that you start to think you are one of them. It has happened to me (too) partly due to working in different design and branding agencies, partly due to potentially some of my own creative bend.

Still, I wouldn’t push this latter rationale too far, as the limitations of my creativity (especially when drawing is concerned, for instance) become too clear, too quickly.

I have nevertheless for some time, as I was telling a friend, been feeling the urge “to create” or “make” something with my hands. Working in Client Services does allow you “to make” things, even though the muscles you are working with are your communicating, organising and planning ones. Physically “making” something feels somehow different and more tangible.

This nagging feeling at the back of my mind and “too much time spent with designers later”, some used to say, I looked into the opportunity of “making” things and found a Summer Intensive in Abstract Painting at Pratt Institute in New York.

So I enrolled in the class that took place at the start of June, packed my suitcase and found myself living like a New Yorker for another fortnight, going to school every morning at 200 Willoughby Avenue with the excitement of a very big fan of the Big City walking its streets one more time and a little bit of languor, too, as I was equally an Arts student and on holiday, after all.

Our very small study group included me, a girl working in Client Services in a super branding agency in London; a Chinese student already in her 1st year at the Institute; a Filipino girl who was already quite advanced in her study of the Arts; a talented guy from Philadelphia equally immersed in the subject. And our Professor, Scott Williams, who has a prolific career as a painter, Arts professor, and – we later found out – a musician, too. Because why not.

The first day in the studio I said to myself that maybe I should have stayed at home instead of crossing the ocean to set up easels and work stations, understand the colour palette, mix colours, test different brushstrokes, and struggle to deliver an acceptable painting in the midst of all the more experienced and much more talented students, while overall dealing with my own insufficiency. Not necessarily the right moment to try to put performance anxiety to bed when you have been suffering from it all your life.

As the course progressed, it turns out I enjoyed every moment of that clean slate and try at something new. I – and the Professor, too – soon became aware that I was indeed the most unqualified person in the room. 🙂 Nevertheless, I sort of kept at it and over the two weeks realised that I will need to put a lot more work in understanding the colour palette, the primaries, the secondaries and the neutrals; the mixing of the colours, so that I get the same result every time; the using of the brushes; the treatment of light and shadows in still life, landscapes and all types of paintings; and most importantly – “how to look” at what I want to paint and “make out” the colours, hues, and tints I see and add them onto the canvas.

An undercover artsy colleague in Client Services recently said that “art can sometimes cleanse your soul” and I did sort of find the overall painting experience soothing and inviting of another look at my role and myself. “I believe that when you give people the right tools, their natural instincts and innate creativity sometimes take over.”, said our Professor in class, as we were drifting away painting, the sound of jazz in the background.

So some make takeaways – useful to remember:

(1)  Creativity is never confined to the sector that you are working in or the sector that you are most comfortable with. It is a human trait and it can be found anywhere and in anyone.

(2)  Creativity is the sum of ideas and thoughts, as well as of concrete outputs and initiatives. Creativity may complete the full circle of coming to life when thought translates creative ideas into action and output.

(3)  Trying something new and being in the role of “the newbie” or “the apprentice” (or “the classroom idiot”, for that matter) can be refreshing and humbling.

(4)  Asking questions and asking for help when you literally don’t know what you’re doing is ok, too.

(5)  Learning something new is liberating. Creating something is liberating, too: it teaches you that you don’t need to have all the answers from the beginning and that you make these up as you go along. “Sometimes a painting isn’t finished when it’s finished, it’s finished when it feels right.”, said our Professor in a statement that seemed to dispel the myth and the crippling pursuit of perfection but not the need to do things right.

(6)  Teaching “creativity” (as well as possibly anything else) is best done in a supporting, collaborative, humane, and non-threatening environment. The best sort of teachers, professors, managers and mentors are those that teach and apply what they themselves preach, instill the passion for the subject and objectively correct you – nudging or firmly – when they see an opportunity for improvement. Oh, and they also let you go off brief every now and then, which has always been the part I have enjoyed the most (sic!).