When the creative well has run dry, there’s no easy fix. But it’s important to identify your fears and push on through, Wellington illustrator Phoebe Morris says.
Morris, 21, has just finished her Bachelor of Arts in illustration. Her final year project was Page Perils, a part written, part illustrated work dealing with crises and strife in the creative process.
Morris admires the work of author and illustrator Shaun Tan – “as every illustrator does” – and was influenced by his work The Red Tree, which depicts a girl’s journey through a dark world in an allegory for depression.
“I wanted to create something like that for creatives. Like, you might feel like X, Y, Z, but it’s OK, because X.”
The result was her final year project, a fold-out concertina dealing with creative angst and depicting an artist’s journey from a blank early beginning.
“What it turned into was ... a partially written, partially illustrative thing that was kind of like advice for creative block, and what I structured it around was key innate fears that stop people from being creative.
“So I was looking at, like, fear of being judged, fear of starting a project, putting pen to paper, acting on an idea, and fear of the unknown.”
One side of the finished project is text-based, with each page corresponding to an illustration on the opposite side. All the illustrations link together, creating a cohesive narrative of crisis and the creative process.
“I think work for yourself is more valuable. Like, no-one else is going to make it, and how do you know it’s going to be bad if you haven't done it yet?” Photo: Supplied
“I had this fully illustrated narrative, no words, where it's someone sitting down at a desk having an ‘oh my God’ moment. They kind of get absorbed by a big scribble, and go through different landscapes. Each one connects to the different inherent fear that supposedly is a source of creative block, then they come out at the end with a finished work.”
As part of Morris’ course requirements, Page Perils needed to have a sound theoretical basis, and she drew heavily on work from psychologists and from David and Tom Kelley of design firm IDEO.
“Our research had to be really theory based, so I started looking at a lot of psychology readings. I was looking at psychological theories about the connections between mood disorders, anxiety, depression, et cetera, and creative practice in a very broad sense.
“That was quite interesting, because when you’re reading psychologists about artists and basically they established there wasn’t a proven scientific connection between being creative and mental problems or whatever.”
Turning the theory around, she started to think about what it all meant for people working and studying in creative fields.
“I was looking at resources for creatives, and most of them were kind of self-help books, which is awful, really. I liked the idea of being able to make something as a designer for other designers about creative stress.”
One of the big lessons Morris took from the project was that creativity can’t be forced: if you’ve got a creative block, step away from the big picture and tackle something small.
“Some days it's just not going to happen. You have to not freak out when you're in that patch, just allow yourself to be in it and allow yourself to ease back into whatever it is you wanted to do.
“It's always good to just step back and then just do something small, just to get back in. Just thinking ‘What can I do this afternoon?’ and not thinking of the whole project is really good.”
That's the most maddening thing, when you're stuck and you're stuck in what you're doing but you’re also stuck in a way that you're not going to be able to move on without that feedback.
Self-editing is another block between people and their creative goals. She found it helpful to write down ideas as they came to her, without judging their quality or validity.
“You need to just get them all down on paper, don't even check yourself because you lose so much in that self-editing part in the first stage because you think, ‘Oh, blah will think this...”
“I remember one thing I didn't want to do it all, then I was like, ‘I don't want to do that because I don't want to be judged by this person’. Once I knew that it was a lot easier to move forward again.”
And while these all help, beating creative block is down to the individual. It’s up to each person to find a way through by identifying the specific inherent fears that are stopping them from getting things done.
She also found talking to her design school colleagues helped to her creative flow.
“It's great to have other people there so you can get feedback on it, where if you're working alone and you get stuck, you have to work through it yourself.
“That's the most maddening thing, when you're stuck and you're stuck in what you're doing but you’re also stuck in a way that you're not going to be able to move on without that feedback. As soon as you talk to someone else about it, it becomes clear.”
Morris has done a bit of work around Wellington, including designing posters and promotional material for theatre company My Accomplice, and a design for Wellington City Council, which appeared as a full-page illustration in the Dominion Post newspaper.
“It was really stressful, but in the end they were just like ‘do it in biro, do it real scribbly’, and it was just fun. It was very different, because there's the client, and the agency, and then there's you.”
Although these commissioned works pay the bills, Morris finds greater reward in following her own muse.
“I think work for yourself is more valuable. Like, no-one else is going to make it, and how do you know it’s going to be bad if you haven't done it yet?”
Her studies completed, Morris is striking out into the professional world next year. She plans to write and illustrate a children’s book, with a self-imposed deadline of her birthday in March to send it to a publisher. She says the lessons in her honours project definitely helped her to complete the year’s work, and she expects it will help some more when she strikes out on her own.
“I've got a book, all in my head. I've got the story and I’ve got the images, so I've just got to get it all down on paper.”
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