Messy is the new Sexy?

[puppetmaker]

Not really but there is a study out that says that messy creative people are the best people in the creative world. Weeeelllllll not really that either however messy is no longer a bad word. There is a difference between messy (unorganized) and filthy (not good for one’s health).

I first came across this theory a couple of weeks ago in one of those internet “if you like this article you might like the following”. It has apparently been kicking around for a while since I found the study being discussed in 2013 in the New York Times and in 2014 in Scientific American.

I am not a neatnic. I would never win a clean house contest. I don’t have a place for everything in my house. It is more a zone. I do clean things up and organize the chaos to a point but we have a lot of stuff that is being used for various projects. We have books and papers that are in use. I have cloth and foam for the puppets. Caroline has her toys, school supplies, and books. We have keys and electronics for the car and for the house. I get the place clean and it slowly slides back into chaos until I pick it up again.

However I can find things and if I place something I make a mental note of where and can get back to something I have seen.

I think the Scientific American article really explains it best and can be found here.

When I read about the four stages of creativity, I swear I must have looked like a bobble head because I was nodding a lot while reading. That article basically sums up how the creative process works for me.

I do a lot of it in my head. I sort things out. Discard that which won’t work and figure out what would. I think that is the longest part of my process. Once I have the pieces in place I go for creating it in this world and deal with anything that might crop up once I get things out of my head. I do better if I have all my pieces at hand so I can go smoothly from one to the other.

My chaos works for me and allows me to be the creative person that I am. I know it probably wouldn’t work for others. I am fortunate that it works for Peter as well so we live with the chaos knowing that once a project is done, it is put away for the next set of chaos.

So being messy is not a bad thing nor it is a good thing. It is just a thing and for me allows me to be creative without worrying about the chaos when I am creating. Just as long as I can find my eyeball box or the tools that I need, it is fine.

I am grateful that my method of creating is not a strange as I thought it was.

Comments

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

The second set of steps, the one with six steps, is used in management classes to tell how to manage people who have started a new task. Even if you've done exactly the same thing in a different environment (written a story, built a puppet), each new one is still brand new, and the steps are the same. The idea in the management class is that at the beginning, the manager may need to help a lot (define the problem, provide tools to help get them going), and in the stage where the person realizes just how big a problem this is and that they're never going to be able to finish it to their satisfaction, give a lot of help, often of the "calm the person down" type. Interesting stuff.