NE of the more common tropes in the creative process is ‘block’, usually prefaced by the words ‘writers’ or artists’. This ‘condition’, so to speak, and its ‘remedies’ have been documented so copiously that one would think it is a disease. So, considering the ‘disease’ metaphor, perhaps we can associate indecision as one of its major side effects.
The statement, “I have no idea.” is a common complaint, so often voiced that it has become a cliché, is somewhat nonsensical. The problem is not that we have no ideas or that we have exhausted our store of them; the ‘block’ is empowered when we convince ourselves that we are incapable of CHOOSING which idea among myriads to develop.
Imagine that you’ve gone fishing in a well-stocked pond but the pond’s owner has set a daily limited time to fish and a maximum catch of only one per day. A school of potentially tasty fish approaches; how do you choose which one will make the best meal within your allotted fishing time? Mulling your choices, you eventually decide based on your experience and instincts, gifts that we sometimes tend to ignore.
Yet, I often think of indecision as a deep mistrust of those gifts in the belief that whatever we create will not meet the high standards we have set for ourselves or that we imagine others expect of us.
Combined with fear and loathing of blank surfaces, whether it is paper, canvas, a chunk of wood or marble, we may feel some combination of excitement and dread before our ideas are ready to manifest. Unpleasant and unsettling as this state may be, I suspect that its real purpose is as a device, an engine, if you will, to kickstart our creative flow. Indecision can also be a process akin to an appetizer before a meal, giving us a taste of the creative adventures that lie ahead.
As an illustrator, even when an assignment calls for very specific imagery, the ‘block’ may ‘materialize’ when trying to decide how to design that image for a specific audience, market, predetermined format or illustration style with which to present it in final art form.
A further complication is the challenge and pressure of externally set deadlines. Regarding an assignment whose subject matter is less than engaging, I have often felt the urge to rush a ‘quick and dirty’ solution to a project quickly off my physical or virtual drawing board merely to meet a deadline. But experience has taught me that the decision to do so usually comes back to bite me in the form of frustrating multiple revisions that rarely end well.
Even when I set out to create a personal work of art where no external pressures are present, I am assailed by a similar set of ‘symptoms of anxiety and indecision at least until I have laid a basic framework for this new venture.
To be fair, everyone suffers from indecision at various times in life. Still, I do know that those of us in the throes of indecision as we embark on creative journeys morph into a strange species of human to an observer. Watch us; we may be out and about in our neighborhoods getting coffee or doing mundane daily errands but rest assured we are out there mentally gathering and sorting images and ideas with which to dislodge our creative ‘blocks’. Our minds are virtually everywhere else, solving the problem of what to do with those blank surfaces we’ve temporarily abandoned in our workspaces.
And that’s ok, because among all creatures, we most certainly are human anomalies with a unique life task; to create mirrors and perhaps palliatives through our work that may help others see themselves more clearly; perhaps even understand and appreciate our collective role as stewards of our planet.
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