May I interrupt?

Last Friday evening I rushed off to meet friends at the 3Continental Film Festival currently on at the Ster Kinekor Nouveau cinemas at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. 37 films about globalisation, human rights and social justice from Africa, Asia and South America. We saw Favela Rising, a documentary directed by Matt Mochary and Jeff Zimbalist. It deals with the issues surrounding the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Afro Reggae is a performing arts group that has gained great respect amongst the communities, government and even some drug lords of these favelas. Anderson Sá and the rest of his group offer workshops for the youth of the favelas, so they may have an alternative to getting involved in drug dealing. At its core the vicious circle of money, drugs and the military police’s inhumane disciplining, is about a lack of hope. But Afro Reggae is covering vast ground: Since their instigation in 1993, their participants have multiplied dramatically. And the number of drug-lords has decreased from more than 150 to less than 25. One man - who, at a young age, lost his brother in a brutal attack by military police - with no real hope, made a choice to turn away from easy money in the drug business. He used his passion for writing, music and percussion, dance and performing, to spread a powerful message and has had great influence and has seen astounding affect.

The Thursday night before, I went to a meeting at the church I belong to, Friends First. A South African couple, who established a church in the UK 6 years ago, is visiting in Cape Town and spoke on leadership. (Did you know that even an introverted person can influence around 10 000 people in his or her lifetime?) His message was one of love. Leading from this basis and not relying on authority, is the key. A good leader knows the needs of his or her followers.

These inspirational events come aptly at a time in my life while I conjure up ideas to somehow make a positive difference in the lives of people who need hope and inspiration. I believe we’ve each been created with a unique set of abilities and interests, so each of us might do our little part in the greater scheme of things. Like I’ve mentioned before, I strongly believe in collaborative efforts and the concept which is community.

On Saturday morning I scratched out sets of old notes my final year lecturer, Charles Maggs, frequently used to pass on to us. I came across an extract from a book by Hillman Curtis; MTIV - Process, inspiration and practice. Here are a few bits and pieces:

This section of the book is based on the talk I gave that day. And the talk itself grew out of a simple practice of sharing we have at the studio.

It worked like this: If I was reading a great book - say, Making Movies by Sidney Lurnet, (Vintage Books) - I would hand it to our creative director, Ian Kovalik, as soon as I was done. He would then read it and hand it to Homera. Or perhaps Grant would come in, and, as his computer was starting up, turn and say to me, “Did you see the Viola show up on 57th Street? It’s amazing,” at which point I would shake my head in disbelief, ashamed that I wasn’t aware that there was a new Bill Viola show. I would recover quickly enough, though, to mention the Phillip-Lorca diCorcia show at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in SoHo. And so on.

The point is that, in our small shop, we’re always collecting inspiration and sharing it with each other. We then use those shared inspirations as starting points, like blueprints or maps, for our own work. Sometimes we even find ourselves using them to directly communicate our ideas, suggesting “a little Kyle Cooper” (Donnie Brasco, not Seven…) here, and “a touch of Brockmann” there. And always, always chanting the classic Hemmingway line, “Write the story, take out all the good lines, and see if it still works” as we go.

What I hope to make clear with this section is that we are all, as creatives, tying to do the same thing. That regardless of our medium, whether it be design, poetry, fiction, painting, filmmaking, or any other form of creative expression, at the core of everything we do lies the need to communicate.

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In preparing for my speech at the flashforward conference my co-workers and I started talking one day about epiphanies - those inspirational flashes that come seemingly out of nowhere - and drew a diagram to illustrate the idea.

But in talking more and looking at the diagram, we started to question the direction we were moving in. We agreed that we had all, at some point, felt divinely inspired. But upon reflection, we concluded that before such moments occurred, we’d actually been seeking out inspiration, often unconsciously. Ultimately, though, we were always working toward inspiration.

It was in that room too that I learned not too think about anything that I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day. That way my subconscious would be working on it and at the same time I would be listening to people and noticing everything… - Ernest Hemmingway

So we talked some more and came up with a new diagram. We discussed inspiration and where it comes from, what fuels our creative energy, and even why we became designers in the first place. As we talked it became clear that we, as creative, are walking a shared path, strewn with the ideas of those who have walked it before us. We felt that once on the path, we couldn’t help but pick up some of those ideas on our way.

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In any given week, I’ll visit a gallery, buy or borrow a few CDs, see a couple of movies, and study my favourite movies on DVD. I’ll read art history, film theory, fiction and poetry. And, of course, I immerse myself constantly in design books and magazines.

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Finally, one night at home, my wife Christina was sharing with me some of the highlights of a poetry conference she’d just attended. … Of many readers and lectures she heard, C.K. Williams really made an impression on her, as he would soon make on me as well.

A member of the audience asked the poet what he does when he’s creatively blocked, when he can’t start the next poem. Williams responded without hesitation: I fall in love with a master. Instead of immersing himself in the world of his peers, he explained, he looks further back, to those who perfected their craft long ago, to those who originally inspired him to write poetry when he was a young man.

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Our job is not an easy one. It takes tremendous dedication and patience to become and remain successful in the creative field. We spend our days thinking of new ideas; we don’t have the luxury of checking out mentally if we get tired and working on cruise control until our energy returns.

But as hard as being creative can sometimes be, its rewards are worth every bit of the effort. And to know that we’re not alone, that countless other have followed and continue to follow the same difficult path, comforts me.

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I begin with an idea, and then it becomes something else. - Pablo Picasso

And so, I’ve changed my mind on having a blog theme each month. Instead, I intend this blog to be a sort of anthology of inspiration. A place where the thoughts, ideas and finds can be exchanged, borrowed and loaned. So, please, if you have anything to add, don’t hesitate to comment.

(Rather than finishing my list of blog bookmarks, I’m going to be more selective when introducing the rest to you.)