Consistency and Creativity
Consistency and being creative has been on my mind a lot lately after an internet convo about it. The cry of “Oh, I’m a creative. I don’t like consistency.” bugs me. For me it feels like consistency is confused with being rigid or overly structured. Consistency means you show up and it means you show up on a regular basis.
Why do we think of being creative as something we only do when we feel like it? That we don’t have to practice and use this creativeness on a daily or at least regular basis? Is it that we think of consistency as doing the same thing over and over, again and again? To me, “I don’t like consistency” feels like an excuse so you don’t have to do something you really just do not want to do.
Being consistent let’s me build confidence with potential clients, it helps me keep up that meditation practice that I’m not into at the moment, it has made me a better artist and person. Do we not look at how we use consistency without even thinking about. Reliving past or potential futures over and over is consistency in a negative manner. But the answer to getting rid of that is consistency of practices that help you kick the reliving habit.
We use consistency all the time, we simply do not think about it often or how we are using it. Maybe that is why so many creatives feel it is not for them? Maybe it is we use it in the negative unconsciously? How do you view consistency? It really does perplex me that people see it as a negative. Is daily hygiene bad? That takes consistency.
Last year I set out to paint five days a week and that did happen. Mostly I wanted to create a consistent practice of creating every day, every week and not just when the mood struck. Consistency helped make me more creative. My art went from a place that I was happy with it to wow I love what and how I am creating.
There are days when I paint for hours and others where I make marks with a pen on a paper or sketch. If I am tired I may watch an art class. It is flexible and not a rigid structure. Seeing consistency as a negative and non-creative creature makes no sense to me as it is essential to my creative process?
