In the “Battle Lines” series we’ve been examining some of the common battle fronts in our creative lives. One of the places I’ve seen many artists get “taken out” in the battle for long-term creative health is on the front of “Identity vs. Masks.”

Thomas Merton, one of my favorite authors once said this about identity:

“There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular - and too lazy to think of anything better. Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success and they are in such a haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity.”

Many of us move through life wearing someone else’s clothes. We produce someone else’s art. We make someone else’s music. We write someone else’s words.  We replay someone else’s arguments. We don’t have the courage and the conviction to stand on our own and speak our own thoughts and craft our own work. We don’t have the courage to say “I don’t know” and to make it up as we go. We are wearing a mask.

The pressure to wear a mask is palpable in western society. We value celebrity and success and, as a result, we ascribe worth to people based upon how “received” their work is or how “popular” it is. (Which is typically, by the way, arbitrarily decided by a few people in an office on the coast.) Or, on the other side, we celebrate people who publicly scoff at celebrity and work out their “anti-pop-culture” art in an effort to show how they are not a part of the “machine.” 

The  problem is that in these scenarios both the “pop” artist and the “anti-pop” artist are wearing masks. They are behaving in accordance with, or responding against, someone else’s expectations. They are not creating out of a sense of identity, they are creating in order to please or defy someone else. 

There is nothing wrong with creating to please. Most of us who hang around this site are create-on-demand pros, meaning that we create everyday to please other people. It’s our job. The problem emerges when we begin to identify ourselves by our work to the extent that we’re no longer sure of who we are or what we care about. We are wearing masks because we’re not so certain that who we are will be received. We reactively hide so as not to be found out.

The best antidote for all of this is - wait for it - unnecessary creating time. It’s critical that we have time to create for ourselves (and no one else) in which we can take on projects that fuel us, give us life and the opportunity to explore new means of expression. We discover ourselves and our unique “voice” as we act. We need to build intentional, structured time into our lives to express ourselves in new ways and to take creative risks where there’s a safety net.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

1. Do I seem to be stuck in a rut, doing well at work but not necessarily gratified by the creative work I’m doing?

2. Does how my work is received by others significantly affect my moods and ability to engage creatively?

3. Do I get defensive when others critique my work, or am I able to listen to their feedback and apply possible learnings without feeling the need to “position” myself?

4. Do I feel a need to always be right?

Remember - “cover bands don’t change the world.” It’s important that we take the steps to unlocking our individual creative passion and finding our unique voice. It doesn’t mean that we’re all going to be rock stars (thank God), it simply means that we all have something beautiful to contribute if we’re authentic, engaged and diligent. Work hard, be real.

I received an e-mail this week from an AC community member asking about how to deal with a negative environment in the workplace. This seems to be emerging as a top concern for creative pros as expectations continue to rise with increasing  emphasis on getting more done with fewer resources. This is especially a concern for agency creatives, as they see many of their clients consolidating their creative work in one or two places and forcing many specialty houses to fold or cut costs in an effort to survive.

With all of this swirling about, it can be difficult to “keep your head” and stay motivated in your work. Here are a few thoughts about keeping your creative edge in a…less…than…ideal…environment:

1. Make certain that you are seeking clear expectations from your supervisor. Know your deadlines, the strategy, the client’s strategy, how your work fits into all of it. Get metrics and document conversations. This is not paranoia, it is seeking clarity, which is the first thing to go in an emotionally-charged environment.

2. Find space for yourself. Have time on the calendar in your day - and a place to go - to catch a breath and get away from the craziness. Make it consistent and something you can look forward to. Even fifteen minutes of solitude can be a huge relief and can help you re-calibrate for the rest of your day.

3. Refuse to engage in negative office talk. When the talk turns south, politely excuse yourself or attempt to re-direct the conversation. Maybe you cannot change the environment, but you CAN choose not to let it affect your attitude.

4. Be jealously protective of your “unnecessary creating” time. If you’ve not done so, put regular time on the calendar - outside of your work day - to create for yourself. If the only creating you’re doing is “create-on-demand”, you will soon find yourself feeling exploited, used and unvalued. 

5. Keep an eye on the big picture. When we’re immersed in a negative environment it can seem as if the world is ending. In reality, this is only the latest pit-stop in your work life. Keep one eye on your work-at-hand, but don’t forget to keep one eye on the big picture, your vocation, and what you’re really up to in this world. Your life is much bigger than your work.

These are a few thoughts that I have around this. Are there specific tips you can offer our community members about how to stay “untainted” and energized in a negative environment?

We’re excited to announce that Accidental Creative has formed a partnership with Le Méridien. [Virtual champagne cork pop…] We have just launched a new website dedicated to delivering Podcasts for the Creative Mind - a series of interviews with Le Méridien’s LM100 members.

LM100 is a group of cultural innovators who define and enrich the guest experience at Le Méridien. The group comprises a global array of visionaries, from painters to photographers, musicians to designers, chefs to architects. In this special series of podcasts, they share their passions.

We’ll be discussing this more over the coming weeks and will be featuring some of the podcasts on the AC site.

Until then, here’s what I’m reading and listening to this week:

READING:

The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art

Mark Rothko is arguably one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. This manuscript was believed to have been written around 1940-41, but remained hidden away in a warehouse until just a few years ago. I am not yet finished with the book, but I believe that it’s a great read for anyone wishing to delve into the interplay between artist and work or artist and society and at the very least it challenges the reader to think about the significance of the created work.

HBR: Pixar and Collective Creativity

Ed Catmull discusses how Pixar manages to stay fresh and “on-top” of its industry. Some key learnings include building culture instead of systems, taking risks and responding to variance rather than controlling for it, and the incredible number of individual ideas that go into creating a product (which emphasizes the importance of valuing process + product.)

LISTENING TO:

HBR: Pixar and Collective Creativity

If you’d rather listen than read, Ed Catmull gives a great interview summarizing his article in HBR.

Time Business Podcast: Can Yahoo Fix The Buzz Problem?

Speaking of Faith: Fishing With Mystery

So…let’s share the love. what are you reading/listening to this week?

These words belong to Michelangelo, who in his lifetime faced criticism, rebuke from authorities, moralistic questioning and reprimand from his patrons. It is often tempting to think that the great masters experienced a freedom that many contemporary commercial artists lack, but in reality many of the same pressures have been present in the “create-on-demand” world for centuries. (The difference being, of course, that your client isn’t likely to kill you if you displease them.)

This morning I was reading in Mark Rothko’s The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art and was reflecting on a few instances of rejection that I’ve recently experienced in my work. It can be easy to toss a bit of “self-help-hyper-psycho-babblish” language at these situations, but the reality is that each instance of rejection is akin to a minor earthquake. It takes a few minutes to decide if everything is still intact, if all of the familiar landmarks are still there, etc. All of our perceptions of our work, our value, our identity, etc., are so fragile and easily disturbed and called into question.

Our identity is not determined by our creating, but it is an expression of it. So any rejection of our creating can, if we are not cautious, begin to usurp our sense of purpose and worth. It can be as if our reason for being is in question. The temptation at that point is to (1) disassociate ourselves from the judgment and circle the wagons, (2) discount the judgment as useless and ignorant, or (3) to come out with full guns blazing and defend our work.

The paradox of rejection is that, if treated properly, it can be a tremendous source of growth for artists. In order to do this, however, we must be aware enough to properly respond to the situation and not react out of self-defense. Here are a few questions that help me when I’m tempted to check out of life:

1. What is the kernel of truth in this feedback? It’s important to separate the feedback from the source. Don’t allow baggage over past conflicts to taint what could be very helpful advice.

2. What should I change next time? Are there any specific action steps that could help me better engage my work?

3. Can I move forward with a clean conscience? In other words, am I holding this against the person who’s delivering the feedback or can I be confident that I can work with this person in the future without letting this instance taint our working relationship? Interactions with authorities, (especially dysfunctional ones), can lead to residue and baggage. We need to keep ourselves clean.

In addition to this, I also typically spend a lot of time processing and writing about my learnings from the rejection so that I am certain not to allow it to attach itself in an unhealthy way to my creative process.

So…how do you deal with rejection of your work?

First was the seventeen-hour bus ride. Call it detox, really. It was my chance to escape for a while, gaze out at the passing landscape and simply forget myself. No agenda, no problems to solve (except how to get comfortable enough to sleep on a bus.)

It felt like we were all in something together.

After an overnight bus ride and a day of relative quiet, one of the first things we did in Nola was tour the region and survey the damage. I was shocked by the extent of the remaining devastation. Entire neighborhoods are still in shambles, teetering on the brink of collapse. In spite of hearing reports from the scouting trip, I was floored by what I witnessed.

On day three we began our labor. Two-hundred and eighty of us were charged with doing the Habitat work, and thirty-or-so of us had the opportunity to hang out with kids who had been displaced by the storm. Many of these kids had lost everything and had only recently been able to return to their homes.

Now on to the save-my-conceptual-soul part. I can’t adequately express what it felt like to get out of bed each day with a clear and simple purpose. Fellow ACer Rob Seddon was also on the trip and said that it was like we were “living the way we’re wired to live.” There was no arguing about what we should do, which direction to go, there was no questioning or solving problems, no moving “big rocks” around (unless they were real rocks.) There was the simple hammering and sawing and moving and engaging and loving kids. That was all. It was simple and it was beautiful.

I love concepts and I love working with my mind. I love solving problems. I love the challenge of it. But as July was coming to a close, I had been neck deep in problem-solving mode for a while. I had huge projects underway in multiple areas of life, the re-work of the AC site is still unfinished, and I was prepping for Nola. (Drowning is the most appropriate metaphor.)

This trip was the concrete answer to my conceptual problem.

There is something that happens when we engage others in generosity and simplicity. As I’ve written before, creativity is simultaneously outward-focused and inward-seeking. We act so that we can re-act. In doing so we recover ourselves from a lifetime of “positioning” and “mask-wearing.” When there are no titles, no bonuses to earn and no extrinsic motivations we are free to purely and simply see the world as we uniquely do and to share that with others as we creatively engage. We are free. And as Parker Palmer says, no act is truly creative unless it is born out of freedom.

So this is my encouragement to you: take the opportunity this week to serve. Do something at personal cost for someone else. Forget yourself for a few hours and lose your masks. Creatively engage.

I was recently surfing the web and I came across something on another website that I’d written to our Premium community a few months ago. (Yes…it was strange to be looking for a quote and to find my own…:)

Life is made up of moments and choices. We can choose to do the small things we must do with great care, or we can choose to stay focused on the “big things” and miss everything in the process. It’s the small, step-by-step, creatively and beautifully engaged act that changes us and ultimately changes the world.

Engage creatively today. Go outside of yourself and then…recover yourself.

IF you’re in New Orleans and IF you have a few hours to stand in line and IF you want to hear some of the most incredible music you will ever hear, you MUST make the effort to visit Preservation Hall. We had a private show last night. I still have chills.

It beats the “I went to Bourbon Street and only heard John Mellencamp cover band” blues.

So…I’ve been on radio silence for a few weeks. Many of you know that I was on vacation until very recently. This week…

I’m in New Orleans with 312 other crazy people partnering with Habitat for Humanity in building homes for displaced New Orleans residents.

Yesterday we took a tour of the entire region by bus. In spite of images and advance warning, I was not prepared for what I saw. Many parts of the greater New Orleans area are still in devastation. It looks like someone dropped a nuclear bomb (a few days ago.) Entire neighborhoods were flattened and haven’t been touched in three years.

Here are a few random tidbits from the bus tour:

• New Orleans Parish is 185 square miles. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 145 of them were covered with water. Lots of water. Rich and poor alike had their homes completely destroyed.
• The 1.5 million residents of the New Orleans region had less than 24 hours warning to evacuate. When many Houston residents tried to evacuate they went 12 miles in that amount of time.
• There is nothing French about the French Quarter. It was built by the Spanish. Hmm.
• Before Katrina, there were over 3,000 hospital beds in New Orleans Parish. Today there are less than 500.
• Before Katrina, the population of New Orleans was a little over 600,000. After, it’s under 300,000.
• Over 5,000 children were separated from their parents during the Katrina aftermath. The last children were not reunited until March ‘06 - nearly seven months later.
• Until 1805 you couldn’t live in New Orleans unless you were Catholic.
• 320,000,000 trees died in the storm.
• 100,000 homes flooded in the New Orleans metro area.

I’ll be posting more throughout the week…the work is fun but so are the random things I’m capturing…