“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.” ― Susan Sontag
Have you had that feeling when you’ve arrived at a destination you’ve traveled to many times and don’t remember the drive there? When we are more familiar with our routine and environment, we stop noticing as much. It’s a creativity practice to notice more, and it takes discipline.
Becoming someone who sees things others don’t is a pathway to success at work because it helps us discover more unique and creative approaches to a problem. It helps us come up with ideas to do things more effectively. It helps us to find unique ways to express our creativity.
Perhaps we pay attention and see what’s around us even less in modern society. We are so bombarded with information that we tune a lot out just to keep our lives on keel. Part of a practice to notice more and observe the world more deeply may be to take a break from all the information and too many activities.
“Anybody interested in thinking creatively seeks (needs) to notice what has been overlooked or ignored by others, to get beyond distractions and attend to the world. Every day, successful teachers, doctors, lawyers , small business owners, middle managers pick up on the subtle clues and details that sail past everyone else.”
And I would add, as an artist whose happy place is weird and wonderful, it exposes you to things you would not have thought of before and the possibilities of expressing those perspectives in one’s art.
I am fascinated with my home place – the northern San Luis Valley – because of its long history of mystical events. The area is packed full of UFO sitings, strange crop and animal events, and other fantastical stories mysterious and unexplainable. If you drive through once, you’ll see a flat valley with either sagebrush or crop circles of potatoes and barley surrounded by what appears to be low mountain ranges.
They are not low – it’s an optical illusion. The valley is 7800 feet high – the highest mountain valley in the world. The longer I live here, the more I see the weather patterns created by the geography, the vast variations of light and weather, and how they affect color and mood.
There is a UFO sighting station on my way to work that is particularly fun. Someone built a platform that, while only 15 feet high, is supposed to allow you to see UFOs better (and see what others don’t see!). It’s surrounded by homemade metal sculptures of aliens and spaceships.
Although I am a UFO skeptic (Carl Sagan says real aliens wouldn’t send a clunky spaceship, more likely a microchip to view us), I love the idea of aliens and spaceships. We can imprint many meanings and visual ideas when surmising what this all looks like and means.
While thinking about aliens and spaceships may not help you in your non-artwork, practicing looking and musing about things trains your mind to look past the obvious and discover something unusual and different. Innovation and creative ideas will flourish when you shake it up.
Make time this week for a walk around your neighborhood. Look deeper and discover at least 20 interesting things you hadn’t seen before. Strengthen your capacity to see more than others see.
