Getting started is the hardest part.
Every creative project comes with hiccups. No matter how much pre-planning, planning, communication and project management… every creative project comes with hiccups. Previous experience has taught me that the first major hiccup can be just getting started. It’s as though there is a need to check, double check and triple check that you are on the right path before beginning and often times with creativity there really isn’t a right path to get the best solution. Solutions seem to come from trouble shooting and trouble shooting seems to start as soon as you get started.
Being nimble and flexible on your feet is probably the best tactic for any creative.
Prior to jumping head first into a creative career I was your typical type A individual. Extremely action oriented and extremely uncomfortable with the unknown. The ideas were circling around in my head, but the actions were out of my reach because I wasn’t able to trust that I had the creativity and patience to see things come to fruition. I was quick on my feet, but wasn’t able to stand still and see the forest through the trees.
Moving into a creative career has challenged me to be both nimble and still… and sometimes that stillness can be paralyzing. I wrote last week about the challenges of critique at BDW — http://bdw.colorado.edu/ — and the heightened expectations I have put on myself to now explain what I am doing as a creative. My work is now being challenged to a new level and the fear behind just getting started is more intense than before.
I wonder if Rem Koolhaas has trouble getting started… Does Daniel Libeskind struggle with the first step…
The good news… getting started is just the first step of many and the following ones can be the most rewarding. I’m currently seeing on of my interior projects come together and everyday there is something new to trouble shoot, but there is also something new to go and see in the space. The walls have gone up… the cabinets have gone in… the tile has been installed… and at each turn the rewards are better and better.
As I move farther down the path at BDW I hope that the rewards of digital design are as amazing as the rewards of physical design. Seeing my vision come together in 3-dimensions has been the driving force behind the last six years of creativity and I hope that the same is true for digital.
