Creativity - Day 13

I’ve had the pleasure and pain of being a “creative” pretty much my whole life. I say pleasure and pain because it really is a double edged sword.

Creativity is a process. It’s a process of thought, research, trial and error, frustration, agony, bliss, and pure joy that you do to solve a problem. It’s not exclusive to the arts either, like many people might assume.

I’ve worked with some really creative people who were MBAs, engineers, fabricators, marketers, etc…It really is about solving problems, and those problems could be in business, finance, design, engineering,…you name it.

For me, it’s mostly been in the arts. As mentioned on this blog, I started playing music at a very young age, and pretty much thought that was all I would ever do. I got really good grades in elementary and middle school, and when I got into high school, my freshman year I was on 3.7 GPA or something like that. This was about the time I started playing music professionally. I will say that the thrill of making a living as a musician, playing music, being creative, improvising, and getting paid, made it really easy to not care about all of the other stuff.

So my grades declined quite a bit. Chalk it up to not caring as much, and also many late nights playing music with little to no time for homework. When I graduated high school, my GPA was probably 2.5, but I had been working for 4 years already and was successful for my age. I was playing with some of the best musicians in town, playing at least 4-6 nights a week, all in a time in Cleveland when there were many thriving restaurants and jazz clubs, and many avid listeners. The pay was pretty good considering the cost of living in Cleveland was so low, and the idea of practicing all day, just trying to be a better musician, and playing at night, was amazing.

But then I got sick and had a heart transplant. You know this part already.

I recovered and was able to play music again, and even travel the US and Europe. It was a thrill. But I needed health insurance, and it’s one of those pesky things they don’t tell you about when you are kid who loves to play music.

You also know that while I was sick I developed a passion for graphic design and photography and about 7 years after my transplant, after being kicked off disability and struggling to pay hospital bills and buy medications, I started my first foray into “a real job.”

I went to a temp agency with one of the few outfits I had that wasn’t all black¹. I remember being interviewed about my work history, which at the time was basically zero other than a few odd jobs I had done with my dad installing office furniture. I selected healthcare as an area of interest and the girl asked had I ever worked in a hospital and I said, “No, but I’ve sure spent a lot of time in one!”

¹You see, jazz musicians have a thing for wearing all black. My friends and I used to call our all black outfits "Black Bart." It wasn't until the writing of this blog that I ever bothered to look up the story of Black Bart. It's pretty amazing. He was a thief in the old west who left 2 famous poems after his robberies. I found this one to be particularly interesting and oddly somewhat releveant.

"Here I lay me down to sleep To wait the coming morrow, Perhaps success, perhaps defeat, And everlasting sorrow. Let come what will, I'll try it on, My condition can't be worse; And if there's money in that box 'Tis munny in my purse." — Black Bart

Well believe it or not, I ended up getting a job in healthcare. I got hired as a temp office assistant at University Hospital in the Plastic Surgery department. It was actually really fun. I was helping out a woman who had broken her leg. She was out for a few weeks and I did her job, but eventually she came back and I was her legs for a few months. They liked me and kept me on for a bit longer and I ended up doing medical transcription. Over my years of illness, stuck at home learning design and photography, I developed some excellent typing speed and accuracy. That coupled with the what I had learned about my own health (I was keen to learn as much as I could) made me a good fit actually. I could type about 80wpm and was familiar with quite a few medical terms already. For the ones I wasn’t sure of, there was a medical dictionary. The doctors would speak their patient notes into a small cassette recorder and give me the tapes and the chart. I would transcribe the audio using a special tape deck with a foot pedal to pause and rewind. I got into a rhythm and was really quick. Then I would print out the notes, the doctor would review and mark any typos or mis-transcriptions, and I would make the revisions and put it in the chart.

Many times the doctors would come to me and talk me through the changes, and teach me a little about the term, and the condition, and what they had done with the patient. This wasn’t a typical plastic surgery office. Many of the cases were reconstructive, or wound care in sensitive areas. An example of the doctor’s feedback would be something like, “this word was actually debridement, That’s when we clean out a wound to reduce infection prior to suturing it.”

I learned a lot at that job. And there was a certain relief to it. I didn’t have to be creative at all. I just had to show up, do the work, and go home. There was actually a right and wrong and you knew what to do.

Fast forward more than 20 years, and that was the only long term job I ever had that was not creative. I’ve always either been a freelance designer, photographer, musician, or worked in-house as a graphic designer, web designer, or art director.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a hell of a ride and worked with amazing colleagues and have collaborated on amazing projects. I wouldn’t change it for anything.

But being a creative is not easy.

When you are making art for a living, sometimes there is no obvious right or wrong way to do things. Often times there are many valid ways to go about it. Sometimes, you can’t seem to find even one. As a result, it’s always been a kind of love hate relationship. You have highs and lows.

When you complete a successful project that you are proud of, you feel like you can take on the world. Often times, the next project, or next several projects don’t quite give you the same feeling, which could for a variety of reasons–low budget, they all come in at once and you are slammed, your skillset is not quite right for the project, not in your comfort zone, etc… Those can be tough to bounce back from. But you have to. You have to produce good work.

And that’s just it. I gave a presentation to a student group at UCSB about design, being a designer, and an introduction to the UCSB brand. I made the point that having a truly great idea, like a WOW idea, may only come a handful of times in your career. For the rest of the projects, you’ve got to make do with a good idea. And therefore making good art, consistently, is a noble pursuit, and making truly great art is borne out of that practice.

Top of the mountains in Santa Barbara, looking northwest to Santa Ynez and beyond.