You did WHAT?

The power and joy of unrecognised creativity.

Somewhere in the middle of dinner my Dad began a meander down Memory Lane. My mother rolled her eyes and left the room to go and prepare dessert. Dad picked up his placemat and turned it round in his meaty hands, tapping first one corner on the table and then the next, laying down a constant percussion track underneath his reminiscing. My husband and I indulged him as he told us (yet again) about the cobbled street on which he played as a child, the brother who left at 16 to join the Merchant Navy and ended up settling in Tasmania, the time he locked his woodwork teacher in the cellar. By the time he was on to his time at the glass-cutting factory, we were eyeing the door wondering when the apple crumble would be arriving. And then he said something entirely new.

“That’s when I made the portholes for the QE 2.”

“Wait! You did what? You made the QE 2? The cruiseship the QE 2?”

Apparently so. Pilkington Glass was a major employer in my hometown, shipping glass for multiple purposes all over the world. Dad never knew the customers for most of the work he did. They would come in as numbered orders with instructions to cut pieces of glass in precise sizes or to silver them for mirrors. As a piece worker, he would get them done as quickly as possible then move on.

This job was different. The glass was thicker, the quality of the cut absolutely crucial and the unusual spec meant that the workers were told what they were working on. Fifty-seven years later, Dad was able to describe in precise detail, accompanied by mime, how the machines were designed, how they functioned and how meticulous he was when working with them.

So often these days creativity is linked to recognition. Whether it the collecting of ephemeral electronic hearts or the growing of reputations, followers and personal brands, there is a societal longing to be clearly associated with our creativity and to receive approbation for it. Creativity is described as a form of self-expression, one in which we should be authentic and reflective of ‘who we are’ and then it is touted promiscuously on the open market in return for cheap praise and faux love.

I am not speaking here of the intentional and boundaried use of publicity to enable a creator to make a living, to advocate for change, to decorate the world with beauty, to facilitate community or to be generously inspirational. I am not describing the valuable process of documenting a learning journey starting with the ‘rough stuff’ and progressing to the ‘messy middle’ with the aim of  empowering others to make their own journey. 

What I am getting at is the knee-jerk assumption that we should share everything everthing on social media and that some form of credit or approbation for everything we create is our due, something we need. I am pointing a finger at the insinuation that if we show work and get no response back our work - or worse we ourselves - are worthless or somehow defective. I am concerned with the message that creativity expressed without a known following, readership, viewers, listeners, or resulting ‘platform’ is somehow not enough. Worse is the message that having these things is the permission needed to get past the ‘gatekeepers’ who tell us what work has commercial or academic worth.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with having people interacting with your work. In fact there is much to commend having an interchange with an audience. I am very pleased indeed that you have chosen to spend time interacting with these particular words of mine. I enjoy responding to comments. Yet, I do believe that we have allowed the pendulum to swing too far towards the valuing of constant self-publicity and sharing at volume. We do not speak enough about the private, quiet rewards of creativity. 

Intangible internal experiences such as mastery, satisfaction of curiosity, gaining a different understanding of the world, perception of beauty, sense of purpose, the reduction of stress and the feeling of flow - these are things that money cannot buy. No metrics can measure them. Yet they are the things of which the joy of life is made. 

More, they are certainly non-dependent on the approbation of strangers and quite possibly actually reduced by the attempt to gain such approval. Again, let me be clear; sharing, participation in groups, a sense of community, generosity and so forth are equally valuable experiences leading to joy. They require a certain interaction with others but they do not mean that we must value the response to our actions more than we do the experience of completing our creative actions and casting then into the world for the benefit of others.

The most important focus of creativity in the second halves of our lives is to make not items, not a career or a reputation, but our days. All of us will have some form of tedious obligation whether it’s still earning a living, cleaning the oven, ensuring the car is serviced or picking up the devastation whirlwind grandchildren leave behind. Around those times, however, we have a choice. 

We can create with a focus on publicity, growing numbers, selling and being accepted. We can fill our days with the consequent administration and stress of ‘playing the algorithm’ that a life lived on social media or other forms of publicity require. We can create with an emphasis on the external. Or we, can create days filled with colour, words, play, learning, joy, dance, music and exploration for their own sakes. We can skip the need for others to ‘make our day’ with their acceptance and we can accept ourself from the outset and thus create more time and energy for the activities that bring us joy. 

To live that way is not about isolation and hermitage. I am not saying that you shouldn’t share - quite the opposite. Spread your joy, and self-expression far and wide. But do it to leave a trail of sunshine, to make people smile, to beautify a world that is struggling. Do it to save yourself the cost of home storage for your canvases. Do it to support those whose own creative endeavours are gallery ownership or small presses. Do it to earn to buy more supplies if you need to. Do it to get over your fears, to gain a sense of satisfaction at designing a complete show or to learn something new. Do it casually. Do it without expectation.

Then, take the likes, the payments, the comments as an unexpected gift; a bonus. Live so that you are full up with all you need because you allow yourself all the creative time and expression you need. Live so that the accolades are no more than the delicious piece of fudge brought with your coffee after a long, nourishing meal. Unnecessary and devoid of nutrients but a welcome sweet ending for all that. 

Living this way guarantees success. It centers us, in the sense that what we think and need, what we see and express is the focal point. This is not to say that others must circle around us, or that we are self-centred in a selfish sense. It is to say that our creativity radiates out from us, pure and unadulterated by a pressure to work to the market, not dampened by fear of the reaction we may receive. It means that we are the pebble in the centre of the lake and the ripples are our gift to the world. It is a way to gently, calmly, without neediness, leave a legacy.

How many people I wonder have looked through the portholes my father made? How many have gained immense pleasure and created special memories from watching exotic ports heave into view through that glass? How many people have worked on the QE 2 and made money for new adventures or met their life partners aboard? How many troops went to the Falklands conflict on her and what would history have been had they not done so? How much has been made possible by the unattributed skilled creativity of that factory worker in a dull norther town in England in the late 1960’s? 

And how much joy was in his eyes as he recounted the making of those portholes! The modest wages he received were long spent and forgotten. Indeed, because they required special care they didn’t even earn him as much as the less interesting work, because he was slower making them. Her certainly never got any acknowledgement for his work. To this day, however, he benefits from the sense of pride in his work, the mastery of the skill it took, the knowledge of a meaningful job well done, the ownership of a story to pass to a daughter. 

Now he has told that story, it is transformed into an essay, on a platform created long after the QE 2 first set sail. It is offered to you and maybe you will take these words and they will inspire you to create something new in response (a rebuttal even!) or, to do your creative work with a different mindset. If so, you too will each create a ripple effect. Then the people you affect will create more ripples.

The QE2 is now a docked hotel in Dubai. The original portholes are still in place. There is a longevity in creativity that is unmatched by the ephemeral nature of social media and passing praise from strangers. The true legacy of our creativity however, is not the item itself, or the reputation it might give us. It is the unmeasured effect our work can have on the lives of unknown others.