That's random...
/Have you ever felt as if your creative work was nothing but random moves, lurching from one mistake to the next?
What if you did that on purpose?
Over at the Museum of Modern Art (remember, MOMA is not your AUDIENCE!), they have a drawing, “Verb List,” from Richard Serra, who recently died and whom I recently referenced as an inspiration for my Large Art Burn. It is a couple of pages with a handwritten list of verbs (to tighten, to rotate, to distribute) and contexts (of nature, of mapping, of time) which gave Serra a fluid “map” of his creative process.
“verb list,” Richard Serra, 1967–68, MOMA
Serra used this list to guide his creative process as he developed his mature sculptural style. And so can you. What would it mean to your current project to open it? Or to dilute it?
A more famous creative tool is Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies: a set of cards with cryptic commands on them. When Eno and his partners were stuck on a project, they’d pull a card from the deck and roll with it.
Since I’ve written about this before, I’ll just copy/paste from my earlier post:
Eno (who coined our term scenius) developed a set of cryptic, Zen-like commands that he used whenever he was stuck on a project. Like casting I Ching coins or randomly opening a holy text or drawing a Tarot card, using Oblique Strategies gave Eno a way to stop gnawing at the puzzle and to think in a new direction.
For example: “Consider different fading systems.” What does that even mean?? How does it apply to my painting/short story/piano waltz?
And presto! your brain is distracted from the wall it’s been staring at, and even if you don’t find a way to apply “Consider different fading systems” directly to your painting/short story/piano waltz, you brain has already created new connections and new directions by stepping back from the work. (It’s a ritual application of GESTALT, isn’t it?)
