Years ago, when I was Community Development Director in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, our neighbor, the City of Aspen, adopted a value for their downtown economic development strategy of “messy vitality.” Later, I was engaged in developing the latest Town of Telluride comprehensive plan. The community knew what made their town special; rust, decay, and ruggedness. At the same time, the Town of Breckenridge had gone through a downtown renewal that intentionally cleaned up its rickety old mining town charm, transforming it into an uncomfortably tidy pink and purple faux Victorian Disneyland. Luckily for those of us who love Breckenridge, they have since realized the error of their ways and removed all vestiges of that misguided “improvement.”
When people go to Telluride, they want to feel like they are in a super hip, rusted, and rugged Colorado mining town that just so happens to have a world-class ski resort and great nightlife. It’s not a coincidence that Telluride also is a creative place where ideas are born and home to The Telluride Institute, Telluride Science Research Center, and the Ah Haa School for the Arts.
To allow creativity to take flight, we must live lives packed with messy vitality, exploration, and moments of silence and awe.
In Messy, Tim Harford documents that people with messy offices, where they are allowed to put up their own stuff and arrange their own space and leave papers strewn about, etc., tend to be more productive and creative than those professional designed and appointed spaces that require every stray file and paper be hidden from view. “People need choices. There is no one-sized fits, and forcing an ultimate way doesn’t work.” He explores what made Building 20 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the birthplace of so much creative genius, even though it was “ugly and uncomfortable” Jerry Lettvin said it was “kind of messy, but by God, it is procreative!”1
Another key element of building 20 “was that the space was easy to reconfigure. Its services – water, phones, electricity – were exposed, running along the corridor ceilings, supported by brackets. This was ugly but convenient,” and created the conditions for reworking space to better support whatever was going on. …. It was so cheap and ugly that, in the words of Stewart Brand, “nobody cares what you do in there.” “Nobody complained when you nailed something to a door.” 2
Speaking from my own cluttered house with books stacked by my bed and on the living room couch and in my studio – a room full of mismatched cabinets and art supplies littering all available surfaces: when I am in a comfortable space with my tools at hand, I don’t have to think about anything else but the work I’m doing.
Some of us are neater than others. My oldest son Devin used to line up my shoes in pairs when he was five. He’s still that way, and he’s very creative. His brain is constantly thinking about things. He travels the world, collects interesting objects, and has original expressive art in his apartment. There is nothing cookie-cutter about him. On the other hand, I live in a clean but cluttered house. I whir around from project to project, and gosh gee, I have to have my tools (books, paint, brushes, canvases, pads of paper) at the ready.
Take a look around your creative space. Is it how you think others expect it to look? Does it reflect cultural expectations as the proper way to live? Or does it inspire you and support your passions? Where does messy vitality show up in your life?
1. Tim Harford. Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives. Riverhead Books, 2016. Pgs 78-79.
2. Ibid.
#11 Messy Vitality: Let go of control and order and get Creative!
July 10, 2022
By Leslie
