📝 Creativity, Inc.
Two big lessons from reading the book on Pixar's story
“Creativity demands that we travel paths that lead to who-knows-where.” — Ed Catmull
I was only a child when I saw the first scenes of the very first Toy Story movie for the very first time. I’ve seen it so, so many times ever since and it still sparks the same sweet nostalgia every time I hear the initial chords of the fantastic You’ve Got a Friend in Me.
It’s so remarkable how chance, randomness, and luck, play a protagonist role in all our lives without us not even noticing. This is my biggest take from reading “Creativity, Inc.” by Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, who tells the story of Pixar's rise to success and the efforts made to protect the creative culture of the iconic film studio. The book explores the challenges faced in the creative process and offers insights and lessons learned on how to thrive creatively in a constantly changing environment.
“Balance is a dynamic activity (…) achieving true balance means engaging in activities whose outcomes and payoffs are not yet apparent. The most creative people are willing to work in the shadow of uncertainty.”
What struck me about the whole story Catmull writes of Pixar is two things:
The incredible persistence of the founders to realise their vision of making an animated film - even from an early time in the early 80s when technology wasn’t that developed yet. And even when the company went through different phases, selling software and hardware, not being a film studio at all, in fact, not really knowing what they were. It takes time and perseverance.
The randomness of events - the luck - that led to a group of specific people in a specific time, followed by an unconnected but interweaved set of events to unite energies and found and nurture the Pixar that we all know today - and the subsequent efforts to keep that creative culture to infinity and beyond.
These two are perfectly summarised in the previous quote:
Balance is a dynamic activity
and
The most creative people are willing to work in the shadow of uncertainty
Let’s dive a bit more into each of them:
Balance is a dynamic activity means being in constant motion at the right pace. In any project, as when practising yoga, balance is not really doing nothing or being motionless - balance in yoga is achieved by engaging all your muscles, especially the core, by managing and redistributing your body energy. Balance in any project requires constant evaluation, correction, and consistent practice and engagement. Achieving balance is not a passive thing but a very active one.
The most creative people are willing to work in the shadow of uncertainty refers to embracing change and the unknown in the process of creation. This doesn’t mean that creativity needs to be messy - in fact, it is more productive to work within a framework and with constraints. This means that in order to unlock innovation and arrive at authenticity, we must travel unforeseen and unexpected paths. We must allow for exploration, failure, and learning. Another quote from the book:
“To keep a creative culture vibrant, we must not be afraid of constant uncertainty. We must accept it, just as we accept the weather. Uncertainty and change are life’s constants. And that’s the fun part.”
A personal story that illustrates these two: for the very first time I went to a pottery class the other day (and I loved it). Prior to the event, I look at some videos and some examples from professionals of what can be achieved by throwing clay on the wheel. In the end, I decided not to go with a fixed mindset on what to produce, but to turn up with an open mind to the uncertainty and unexpectedness of a process I was going to do for the first time. I allowed myself to explore and create whatever my hands will take me to do during that process. On the other hand, the process was incredibly dynamic, truly the balance was achieved by engaging and coordinating both hands into working together and putting all our attention on the wheel.
Creativity started to emerge when these met and I was dynamically engaged and freed from certainty about the outcome at the same time. It was in these fractions of seconds that I envisioned that creative flow and my hands will move alone to experiment with what they could do.
There are so many more lessons learned on creativity you could extract from this terrific book (indeed this post started as a more expanded version of them) but I do believe these two are the biggest and the no-so-obvious ones we could apply to many processes. I will repeat them again for all of us:
Balance is a dynamic activity and Creativity happens in uncertainty
Would recommend getting the book if you haven’t read it yet!
✏️✨
Happy sketching!
Ana
Lovely post and I’m impressed by your pottery skills- I remember trying it out myself some years ago and had great fun.