Frank Capra, the great film director (It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe, etc.) used to tell a story about working on a film with Frank Sinatra. Sinatra was an actor who liked to do a scene only once or twice. After that he got stale. He had what some would call "creative block." As one particular scene had to be shot over and over, Sinatra's performance got worse and worse. Capra asked him what was wrong."It's just not happening," was all he could mutter."Well, take a break, and I'll fix it," Capra told him.

Sinatra took a break, and when he was gone, Capra changed the seating positions of some of the actors. He changed some of the lines that would be said in response to Sinatra's lines. He changed some of the physical actions the actors had used. He changed a few other visual details. Then he called Sinatra back. He didn't clue him into what he had done when he called, "Action."

Sinatra said his first line, but the response was different from what he expected. Sinatra suddenly came alive. He said his next line, and got another new response. He continued to play the scene until the end when Capra called cut. Sinatra was brilliant. And, Capra, maestro that he was, was truly brilliant in understanding a principle we are going to talk about: Boredom and being stuck comes from being unable to think of life in new terms. Being too familiar with the approach you have always taken leads to limited possibilities. If you change a few things around, there's new stimulus, new things to play off, new realms to discover, and therefore, new things to create.

A while ago I gave a talk at Pine Woods College, a school in New Hampshire that focuses on the arts, especially the visual arts (painting, photography), and writing, (creative writing and journalism.) One of the students said she had "creative block." "What do you do?" I asked her. "Photography," she said. "That's interesting. I don't believe in "creative block," I said.

I gave her a suggestion. "Here's what you can do: Make bad pictures."

"Huh?"

"Make bad pictures. The worse the better. Take them out of focus with bad compositions, unattractive subjects, bad lighting, bad depth of field, and use all the wrong settings on your camera."

What she was experiencing was boredom with what she had done so far. This is common in the arts as the Capra/Sinatra story attests. It is just as common in the rest of our lives.

We have done everything we can think of doing in the style or approach we have used, and now, the process produces the same type of expected results we have produced again and again.

This young woman's pictures were becoming predictable and boring. If she could set up new standards and rules, and go beyond her notion of what she needed to produce as a photographer, she would free herself from the prison she had made for herself. She might find that some of her "bad" pictures were very interesting, truthful, original, and alive. Using this idea, she was bound to rediscover her art and her life. She would be in a position to explore new territories, and from that, encounter new possibilities.

Boredom is an important moment in the life of an artist as it is an important moment for all of us. It is a transition point: A moment of creativity when change becomes more probable because it is more possible.

What motivates the change is that we've exhausted our usual methods by taking them as far as we can. We've done it and done it and done it. If we continue to do it, more of the same will produce more of the same. No wonder we're bored out of our minds. But, all of us have been subjected to the modern world of psychological theory in which pure boredom becomes pure blockage. Maybe it was your relationship with your mother, or your birth experience. Maybe you have hidden resentment you need to work out, or maybe you are self-destructive, lack self-esteem, or are insecure, anxious, or self-doubting. Maybe you are afraid to be more creative for fear of being rejected by the people you love. Maybe... maybe... maybe....

The fact is people get bored with themselves and that's not a bad thing. The reason they get bored is because they are tired of the same old same old. There is something in us that wants to discover new worlds, have new thoughts, consider new questions, and be challenged with new experiences. Without something new to explore and create, we fall into deadening numbness. It?s sad to see very talented people have their talent turn on them when there?s no place for them to go. It's sad to see their talent driven underground.

The reason they feel blocked is that they don't see the entrenched underlying concepts they are living with, the ones they apply to their work. Rid yourself of these concepts ? even ones about what is good or great art ? and new life can emerge. This principle is true for us all. Rid yourself of your image of what life is supposed to be like, and the spirit of life will emerge in all its glory and integrity.

Too often we hope that something new will simply appear in our lives. In light of not knowing what to do, we submissively wait for inspiration. But it doesn't come. We can feel like passive casualties of "creative block." We might not know that we can do something to change the situation we are in.

What we can do is change a few things around. We need to abandon our ideals of what our life is about, how it should look, what rules it should follow. Let's break a few of the old rules and assumptions. Let's not trade in our life-spirit for the lackluster prospect of continuity.

In the arts, successful visual artists always run into a conflict with the galleries that represent them. The galleries want the artist to paint the same type of painting he or she has done in the past ? the ones that sell. But artists often get tired of painting the same type of painting. They have explored that territory long enough, and now they want to explore new territories and follow their creative interests. This attitude can drive a mercenary gallery owner nuts. Making the same popular paintings is like printing money, so why change? What the gallery owners can never really know is that if the artist doesn't change past the point of authenticity, it will kill his or her art, no matter how much money is being made. After all, not too many people go into painting to get rich. They go into it for the love of the art, and they may hope they can fund their creative dynamic urge by finding an audience.

In one of the programs that Rosalind and I hosted on our TV series Creating, the legendary poster artist Vittorio Fiorucci, talked about this principle. He said, "At a certain point, you know, like all of us, I just got bored with what I was doing. And that's when I started doing the cartoons." The "cartoons" was one of the aspects of his work that was most celebrated and represented a major breakthrough in his art.

How do you move forward if you have done it all?

If you don't move forward, you will become bored, cynical, and spiritually dead. The way is to change your assumptions. Rid yourself of your ideals, concepts, and rules for living life. Free yourself to fail, make mistakes, learn, explore, experiment. In a nutshell: MAKE BAD PICTURES.

Copyright © Robert Fritz, 2003

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