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I enjoy good books. More so, if I find a good one, I like to tell people about it. I do this for two reasons: 1) Because I feel like the ideas in the book are worth sharing. 2) To give people more good books to read so they don’t have to waste time looking for them. That’s why I write these posts: To introduce people to good ideas.

I recently finished A Beautiful Anarchy: When The Life Creative Becomes The Life Created, by my friend and fellow photographer David Duchemin. I loved this book. Mostly because it’s not written for some of us but for all of us. This book is about being a creative human. Here are some of my favorite ideas and quotes from it.

What’s it about:
This book is about being free. Free from that lie that we’ve no doubt used and been told of “I’m just not really creative.” And it’s about what it looks like to be there in that freedom. How we can choose to live life on our own terms, to live intentionally, to live creatively, and make art with our lives.

Why Read it:
Because you’re a creative. I don’t just mean “you” because you get paid for being a creative. I mean you because you’re human. This book is about exploring the creative process on purpose (One of my favorite things about it) not just for creative professionals but everyone. Parents, designers, lawyers, teachers, doctors: We’re all creative and we all get to make art with our lives.

“… Anyone who persists in the idea that “I’m just not really creative” is unlikely to read this book, believing instead that the die has been cast and they’ve been excluded. They, of all people, need most to read it, and I hope they do.”

Favorite Idea:
I had more than one favorite idea from this book:

One is the idea of your life as a blank canvas. You’re free to paint on the canvas with whatever you want and however you want. But, as David says, “Don’t you dare let it be blank.”

Another is the idea of “Waiting for The Knock.” The Knock is something David’s comedian friend refers to sometimes. Not knowing what he meant by it, David eventually asked:

“‘The knock?’ I once asked. ‘Yeah, you know, the knock. When someone comes to your dressing room and knocks and tells you they’ve discovered you have no talent and want you to leave’ Ah yes, the knock.”

We’re all waiting for the knock. We all feel like we’re faking it. So, I’m reading this and nodding along in agreement, then David says something I wasn’t expecting: “I am faking it.” He writes, “We all are. We’re all just making it up as we go.”

I didn’t see that coming but doesn’t it take the pressure off? Doesn’t it make you feel better to know that everybody else feels that way too becasue we are all faking it. We’re all making it up as we go because we’re in the business of making things that don’t exist. There is no right way…. Did I mention you should read this book?

Favorite Quotes:
(this could be the section where I copy and paste the whole book (Because it’s all a good quote) into here but because I think you should own it, I’ll be brief and just share the quotes that made me stop and take note. :))

“Come. Stop observing. Stop abdicating your life. Live a great story instead of just watching, telling, or dreaming them.”

“To do what we should in art is bondage.”

“For me, if owning the latest car or appliance means I give up the experience of travel, and the freedom to do my work, it comes at too high a cost. Most of us love the idea of having a choice until we’re told that choice means giving up one to have another. Some don’t realize it is a choice.”

“If you want to create more interesting, meaningful, beautiful songs, paintings, businesses, or meals, become a more interesting, meaningful, and beautiful person.”

“We seldom see the final painting with any clues over the frustration, boredom, and hours spent scraping the canvas and beginning again that it took to get there.”

“Whatever else it is, this is not a book about finances. But it is a book about the freedom to live your creative life to the fullest, and you’d be insane to believe that living in obedience to debt and under the tyranny of bill collectors is your best possible creative space.”

On Bad ideas- “You can’t judge the raw materials the way you evaluate a finished product.”

“Talent doesn’t qualify you to do your art. Doing your art is what qualifies you to do your art.”

Where to get it:
You can buy the Kindle book here: A Beautiful Anarchy: When The Life Creative Becomes The Life Created
And the beautiful paperback version here (with PDF): A Beautiful Anarchy: When The Life Creative Becomes The Life Created
Anarchy-Paperback1

I highly recommend this book to anyone who makes stuff for a living and needs a swift kick in the ass. If you’ve been thinking you can’t make anything worth while or thinking “why should anyone care what I have to make?” or “I’m not really creative.” Buy this book today. We need what you have to make and only you can make it.A-Beautiful-Anarchy-Quotes

Happy Monday!

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Stop trying make people understand your dream. It will never happen… Until it’s real. I know for me personally when I share an idea I’m excited about and the person doesn’t share my excitement, I get offended. Why? Why should they be excited? I haven’t done anything yet! Remember, it’s your dream not theirs. By default, you will always care about it more than they do. They might not get it until it’s real.

This is the lesson I have learned from this: It’s insanely hard to get someone to understand something that only lives inside your head. It’s exponentially easier to get someone to understand things that exist in the real world.

Your idea is like Sasquatch. You can talk about how you “saw one one time” but it’s very, very hard to believe it if I didn’t see one one time as well. I want to believe but I also want proof. I want evidence. I want real. (P.S. Sasquatch is definitely real. We should all be on alert.)
Your-idea-like-sasquatch

Dreaming is important. Having ideas (and a lot of them) is important. But if we don’t do anything about it, it’s not real and nobody will ever care. Make it real, then tell everybody about it.

Happy Friday Ladies and Gents. It’s bound to be an epic weekend 🙂

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Differentiation is beat to death. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t differentiate but I do think sometimes we get too caught up on the “Different” part of the word. To be different from our competition is the goal but not for different’s sake. “Different for different sake” is just as boring as “same.”

“In almost every market, the boring slot is filled.”
– Seth Godin, The Purple Cow

Boring is already filled but so is different. Different for different’s sake is boring. You know what spot is not already filled? The You Spot. The You Spot is all you, son. See, this is where we get lost with the differentiation thing. We think we have to be different to survive in this crazy competitive field but the truth is: We have to be different because we are.
Blogs for creatives

We can rack our brains all day long on how to be different but we already are. So the only question is: how do we make us work for us? You’ll have to answer that one but let me put this bug in your ear to give you a hint: Personal Growth. Growing yourself and adding value would be a good place to start. If you’re wondering what’s going to make my art better and different? That’s it. What’s going to make my business better and different? That’s it.

Don’t worry about the boring or different spots. They’re already taken. Take the You spot because it’s all yours. Nobody else could take it even if they tried.

Happy Thursday, Folks!

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If you get paid to make stuff: Writing, photography, design, the lack of inspiration doesn’t give you permission to make sub-par work. It’s too easy to blame lack of inspiration. It’s easy because it’s not on us…. but it is. It is because we didn’t create the value we promised we could create. Uninspired or not, that has to happen.

I have felt uninspired. I have felt burned out. I’ve felt these things but at the end of the day, I know I have to make something that is equal or greater to what I promised I could make when I put all those images in my portfolio. Uninspired is not an excuse.
Uninspired-is-not-an-excuse

It’s not an excuse because we know what to do about the inspiration problem. So what do we do? Have a plan going in.

Taking responsibility for your creativity is part of what being a creative professional is all about. Do something intentional this week to feed your creativity and then, make a plan to do something every week on purpose.

I love this quote from Todd Henry in The Accidental Creative: How To Be Brilliant At A Moments Notice.

“You need to create space for your creative process to thrive rather than expect it to operate in the cracks of your frenetic schedule.”
― Todd Henry, The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice

There’s no guarantee that you’ll always show up and knock it out of the park, but you can be more prepared to. It won’t just happen. You can experience that spark of insight and inspiration more often if we chase after it on purpose.

Happy Wednesday!

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Last night I watched The Monuments Men. A film set in WWII, based on a true story, where a group of guy’s only mission is to find and save art that has been stolen by the Nazis: who’ve planned to destroy all of it should they lose the war. The art they are charged to save are masterpieces: From Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa”

mona_lisa,_by_leonardo_da_vinci,_from_c2rmf_retouched (1)                                                                                                                                                  Wikimedia Commons

to Michelangelo’s “Madonna of Bruges”

madonna-of-bruges-michelangelo                                                                                                                                                        Wikimedia Commons

These men fought and died to protect these masterpieces so future generations could enjoy them. More than 5 Million works of art were found and saved from being lost forever. What an awesome story.

The whole idea of masterpiece got me thinking… I wonder how many “terrible” portraits Da Vinci painted before Mona Lisa? I wonder how many unimpressive sculptures Michelangelo completed before Madonna? Did they set out to make a masterpiece, was everything they made a masterpiece, or was this just work to them?

Was it about the work? Or was it about creating a Masterpiece?

I think it was probably about the work. I find it hard to believe that Da Vinci would consider everything he made to be a masterpiece or “his best work.” No, instead he probably missed it. He probably never thought that someday people would fight to protect his work or would die so that it could survive. But nevertheless he did his work and a masterpiece exists because of it.

Is making a masterpiece worthy of protecting at all costs in the cards for you or me? I don’t know. Maybe? But I do know this: The best way to miss out on making a masterpiece is to make nothing.

How-to-not-make-a-masterpiece, The-Monuments-Men

I don’t know if Da Vinci or Michelangelo ever made a bad painting or sculpture in pursuit of their masterpieces, but I do know that they made stuff. A LOT of stuff. And if we are to be artists, creatives, humans, we have to do the same. You don’t just wake up one day and make a masterpiece. Every image you make will not be a portfolio piece. Every book you write may not be a bestseller. But let’s keep making stuff. Let’s keep making art because it’s important. Because it tells a story of us. Because art has never been about making a masterpiece, it has always been about making art. The best way to miss out on making a masterpiece is by omission. Make stuff and make it good.

Happy Monday!

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