The Rules of Creative People - 3/17/2014

A friend of mine once again posted something on Facebook which inspires me to write. It was a collection of 10 things that are common to creative people. Most of them I agree with fully. However, there's one that I think deserves discussion.

Specifically, that creative people hate the rules. I don't think that's true. I think we are more sensitive to arbitrary, unnecessary and obstructive rules, and hate those.

Make me wear a tie to work? I hate that rule. It doesn't affect my ability to do my job, and makes me uncomfortable. How is that a valid rule?

But tell me that I am expected to put the bills into my till sorted out by denomination, and that makes sense. That's a rule that makes it easier to do my job and is based on the necessities of my job.

Because that's what artists do. We look for the rules that exist independently of our opinions or expectations. Photographers who use film learn early on that you really, utterly cannot expose that film to light after it has been used if you want the picture to come out. Painters learn that this brush technique results in this visual effect, which can be combined in certain ways with other techniques to create an effect on the audience.

And yes, we ultimately want to break all of those rules. But it doesn't mean we hate the ones that make sense, only that we do not see them as things that should restrict or obstruct us from accomplishing those works that are in our heads. Picasso is famous for cubism, which did things with the laws of perspective that I still don't really understand.

But he learned the rules first. Picasso's early works look much more classical in style and technique. He learned what rules others had discovered and developed so that, when he chose to move beyond them, he could do so on firm ground, and create those paintings that he truly wanted.

So if the artist in your office seems cranky over a particular rule, you might want to consider that it may be an unnecessary, arbitrary rule that needs to be changed.

Or they may simply be short of coffee.

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