Art as a Way of Being

Lessons in thinking creatively

I will confess that, although I am a working photographer writing ostensibly for an audience of my fellow photographers, I feel a sense of kinship with anyone trying to create any form of art, especially if they’re navigating how to do it for a living. To that end I like to learn from musicians and writers and painters and really anyone who’s professionally creative. And sometimes I write here with that broader audience in mind. Today is just such an occasion. 

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There’s an age-old argument about whether or not creativity can be taught. I come down on the side of yes, it can, insomuch as creativity is just an approach to thinking. If we can be taught to change the way we think, we can learn to be more creative. 

It is with this idea in mind that I approached the “self-help for artists” book of the moment, Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being. 

So many people have written about super-producer Rubin and his tome that I’m almost embarrassed to belatedly add to the fracas. He’s most definitely overexposed, at least in my social circles where I encounter almost daily discussions of whether his book is genius or trite. Just today I heard three separate mentions of his name, once in the real world and twice online. It seems if you’re thinking about creativity, you’re thinking about Rick Rubin. 

To be clear, I don’t have a hot take. I liked the book and found it quite useful. But I can understand how some might be left feeling like the secret sauce for Rubin’s genius went unexplored. This could simply be evidence of different modes of thinking.¹ 

More importantly, The Creative Act helped me get a handle on an idea I’ve been mulling, that creativity is just a mindset. It’s a way of thinking and, as the book’s subtitle suggests, a way of being in the world. 

I want to share a few things from The Creative Act that I found especially helpful. 

Following the Rules Directs Us to Average Behaviors

“A rule is any guiding principle or creative criteria. It might exist within the artist, the genre or the culture. Rules, by their nature, are limitations. The laws of math and science are different from the rules that we’re looking at here… All kinds of assumptions masquerade as laws. Suggestions from a self-help book, something heard in an interview, your favorite artist’s best tip, an expression in the culture or something a teacher once told you. Rules direct us to average behaviors. If we are aiming to create work that’s exceptional, most rules don’t apply. Average is nothing to aspire to. The goal is not to fit in. If anything, it’s to amplify the differences. What doesn’t fit? The special characteristics unique to how you see the world. Instead of sounding like others, value your own voice. Develop it, cherish it. As soon as a convention is established, the most interesting work would likely be the one that doesn’t follow it. The reason to make art is to innovate and self express. Show something new. Share what’s inside. And communicate your singular perspective.”

Perhaps I responded so strongly to this because it is something I struggle with constantly. I know the way things should be done, and so too often I put the “how” ahead of the “why.” When you have been trained as a craftsperson, it’s too easy to fall into the trap of technical excellence equating to artistic excellence. This is evidenced by the technically simple paintings and photographs that have long garnered exclamations of “I could paint that!” It can be exceptionally difficult to set aside technique in an effort to focus on something even more essential. 

Case in point: For years I operated as a photographer as if there was a “correct” exposure for every shot. Meaning, no matter how much I worked to ensure an image was neither too light nor too dark, too warm or too cool, I lived in perpetual fear that some expert would come along and say “that’s too dark and too blue.” Imposter syndrome, sure, in part the fear that I’d be found out. But more than that it was a failing in my thinking about something as fundamental as photographic exposure. There’s no such thing as “correct,” of course. There’s only the mark I choose to put on the paper (or pixels). Photography is painting, poetry is pottery. If Picasso can break all the rules, so can we. In fact, so should we. 

Start the Next Project by Forgetting the Previous One

“It’s helpful to continually challenge your own process. If you had a good result using a specific style, method or working condition, don’t assume that that’s the best way, or your way, or the only way. Avoid getting religious about it. There may be other strategies that work just as well and allow new possibilities, directions and opportunities. This is not always true but it’s something to consider.”

“Holding every rule as breakable is a healthy way to live as an artist. It loosens constraints that promote a predictable sameness in our working methods. As you get further along in your career a consistency may develop that’s of less interest over time. Your work can start to feel like a job or a responsibility so it’s helpful to notice if you’ve been working with the same palette of colors all along. Start the next project by scrapping that palette. The uncertainty that results can be a thrilling and scary proposition. Once you have a new framework, some elements of your older process may find their way back into the work, and that’s okay. It’s helpful to remember that when you throw away an old playbook you still get to keep the skills you learned along the way. These hard earned abilities transcend rules. They’re yours to keep. Imagine what can arise when you overlay an entirely new set of materials and instructions over your accumulated expertise… Challenge your assumptions and methods. You might find a better way.”

I find immense tension between doing what I know works well—the tried and true—and breaking new ground, pushing boundaries, discovering what’s just over the horizon. I make photographs for clients with expectations, after all. I can’t afford to fail. Actually, that’s not true. My business can’t afford to fail. As an artist I need to push myself to fail more often. Complacency is a slippery slope straight into obscurity. I know I need to make a deliberate effort to break new ground, which can be as simple as trying new-to-me techniques. Some of which I’m sure I will initially dismiss as “rule breaking” before remembering that’s precisely the point. “You can’t do it that way,” needs to leave my lexicon. Where others see a “right way” to do something, the artist actively seeks out atypical possibilities. Challenging rules is not just a punk aesthetic, it’s fundamental to creativity. 

Carefully Put On Your Socks

Drawing from an unexpected source, Rubin quotes all-time-great basketball coach John Wooden, who started each season by teaching players to pay attention to the tiniest details in order to set up the team for success. 

“The first thing I would show players at our initial day of training was how to take a little extra time putting on their shoes and socks properly. The most important part of your equipment is your shoes and socks. You play on a hard floor so you must have shoes that fit right and you must not permit your socks to have wrinkles around the little toe where you generally get blisters. Or around the heels. I showed my players how I wanted them to do it. Hold up the sock, work it around the little toe area, and then the heel area so there are no wrinkles. Smooth it out good… That’s just a little detail that coaches must take advantage of, because it’s the little details that make the big things come.” 

“Each habit might seem small,” Rubin writes, “but added together they have an exponential effect on performance. Just one habit at the top of any field can be enough to give an edge over the competition.” 

What are the habits in your own creative practice that lead to success? In my case it’s in the way I prioritize my time. Did I give myself enough time to prepare for the shoot? Sure, if “preparation” means packing up gear and cleaning lenses. But what about more meaningful creative preparation? An extra few minutes is sometimes all it takes to go from the same old thing to a brand new approach. When I go into a shoot with a specific plan in mind, as well as a jumping off point for experimentation, the work is noticeably more successful. Starting with the smallest habits—the creative equivalent of putting on your socks correctly—lays the foundation to allow the more meaningful effort to freely come.²

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Around the time I began writing about The Creative Act and its impact on my mindset, Rick Rubin—a music producer—was interviewed by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes. This exchange, while humorous, says a lot about what it means to have vision and the confidence to create boldly. 

AC: Do you play instruments?

RR: Barely.

AC: Do you know how to work a soundboard?

RR: No. I have no technical ability and I know nothing about music.

AC: [Laughs] You must know something.

RR: Well, I know what I like and what I don’t like, and I’m decisive about what I like and what I don’t like.

AC: So what are you being paid for?

RR: The confidence that I have in my taste and my ability to express what I feel has proven helpful for artists.

This strikes me as spot on. The chutzpah! But really, all he’s saying is he’s great at being himself. And that’s what he’s been telling us we need to do too. It just so happens that what Rick Rubin likes, large swaths of the music listening public like too. I firmly believe, and have had it reinforced by innumerable other artists over the years, that the only thing that’s unique about you is you. It is your duty to be yourself if you’re to have any hope of achieving something interesting, meaningful, or just plain great. 

I have a commercial photographer friend who has long insisted that we are ultimately paid for our taste. With every new assignment, the more I believe this to be true. There’s no accounting for taste, as I’ve covered in painful detail, and so you might as well forge ahead doing what love, or at least what interests you at any given moment. It may actually be the only way to ever be creatively free. 

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Creativity Is Openness

I no longer see “being creative” as something I do when I have a camera in hand, or when I sit down at my computer. Creativity is absolutely found in everyday tasks and how one approaches the world and their place in it. It is absolutely a way of being, as Mr. Rubin’s book explains wonderfully. It seems a very calming and empowering place to be. 

“I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be,” Rubin writes. “I found it especially enlightening because it told me something I desperately wanted to hear: creativity isn’t strictly limited to a profession.”

One of my primary takeaways from The Creative Act is the importance of being open. Open to new ideas, open to new approaches, open to being wrong. When one is proactively open, as I have been practicing, navigating the world becomes a bit more pleasant. I find myself more respectful of the creative efforts of others, and more a part of their community. I feel a kinship with anyone trying to make something creative, no matter how successful a given output may be. Making something is the essential first step toward making something great. 

“Being open to possibility gets you to a place you want to go that you may not know you wanted to get to,” Rubin writes. “If you know what you want to do and you do it, that’s the work of a craftsman. If you begin with a question, and use it to guide an adventure of discovery, that’s the work of an artist. The surprises along the way can expand your work and even the art form itself.”

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New York Times columnist Ezra Klein wrote of Rubin’s book, “It is less about music than mind states: awareness, openness, discernment, attunement to nature, nonjudgmental listening, trust in your own taste. It is at once mystical and practical, alive to the tensions of creation but intent on holding them gently. I found it unexpectedly moving.”

This mirrors my own experience with The Creative Act. I think it’s because I started off at least partially in the right headspace to accept the book’s philosophical insights as profoundly practical. Were I not, it may have struck me as too broad, or worse as high-minded pablum—a cynical criticism I’ve heard in person and online. One might argue, perhaps ungenerously, that this is actually proof that not everyone can be taught to think creatively. 

1. Or it’s simply evidence that I haven’t read enough of eastern philosophy and best practices for self help. 

2. If exploring how small acts can have a big impact sounds like your idea of a good time, allow me to suggest the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. It didn’t change my life, but it did improve the way I value the little things that make a big difference.