I had a nice discussion with friends last night about creativity and how important it is to not edit at the beginning of the project. Put down a rough outline or a sketch. Then fill in. Then edit. If you edit at the start you will never get your project built. Yes, a strong foundation is good. But the best part is that whatever art form you use, be it writing, music, beading, painting -isn’t a building. You can rearrange it, especially if you are creating in a digital format.
If you think too much about the end you will never get past the beginning. Rarely do my creations end up the way I expected. Over twenty years of jewelry making has taught me that, and I’m learning it is true about writing as well. Even if I have the beads, once I put them together they look different. This texture doesn’t look right with this color. Or I don’t have the skill to connect them the way that I want. I’ve learned to do it anyway with what I have. Just keep going forward. The process is more important than the product.
What you make this week will (probably) look stupid to you in a month. That is OK. You are a different person a month later. Don’t rip your creation apart. Make something else. If you rip it apart and try to remake it, you are just making the same thing over and over. Make something new. That way you are adding, not subtracting. You will constantly be growing and changing and developing. Each time you create you are learning more about the medium and about yourself. Each time you create you are growing.
It is OK to revisit a theme. Whether you are creating with beads, words, or musical notes, themes come up and need to be worked on. It is fine to return to that theme and give it a different treatment. Perhaps this time you will find the “right” way to express that idea. Or not. That is OK too. Keep working and pushing and trying. Grow forward, not back.
I suspect creating is a lot like having a child. You don’t know how it is going to look or behave once it comes out. It isn’t about controlling the creation – it is about being part of it, and letting it develop naturally through you. Part of the delight (or frustration) with being a creative person is that the result surprises you. It ends up how it ends up. Rarely when you are creating do you get to “have it your way”, in spite of what Burger King says. The way your creation ends up is the way it either needs to be, or it is the best you can do right now. The more you practice your art, the better you will get. It is helpful to think of each attempt as a stepping stone, not a stumbling block.
Perhaps I’m trying to be a midwife to your creativity. Don’t fight it. Let it happen. Don’t push too soon. Breathe.
Everybody has to start somewhere. Mozart didn’t create amazing music right from the start, right? OK. Maybe he did. That’s why we call him a child prodigy. But the fact that we have a special word for it means it is unusual. I seem to remember that he had a LOT of music lessons, though. The only difference between you and the expert is a lot of time and work. So get going and make more art!
Category Archives: Beads
Beads and Writing
Writing had been an integral part of my life for many years before my parents died. I had written in a journal for longer than I’d known how to drive or cook. I was working on a degree in English so I was surrounded with words. Writing was how I thought. Writing was who I was.
But I stopped writing after my parents died. Full-stop, arrested, halt, “none shall pass” stopped. It was too hard. I didn’t have the words to process my grief. Every time I started to write, even something simple and not-journal-like such as an email, I started to cry with great wracking tears. The emotions overwhelmed me in huge waves and I didn’t know how to deal with them. I was drowning in grief, so I didn’t even want to go near the water.
Yet I still needed to create. I still needed to drink the life-giving water of creation. I think creating is essential to the human soul. I like Madeline L’Engle’s view in Walking on Water, her book about what it means to be an artist and a Christian. She says that to create is to be a co-creator with God. Essentially, we are created to be creators.
It doesn’t make sense now for me to have stopped writing. It was like another loss, another grief. I’d lost my parents, and then I lost my way of thinking, of understanding. I was untethered. My boat was unmoored. I had all these new, unpleasant and unfamiliar ideas and thoughts and I had no way to deal with them, no way to bring them back to a safe shore.
And then I remembered beads. I had started working with beads when I moved to Washington D.C. I’d made that first fateful foray into a bead store in Dupont Circle nearly half my life ago. I went with a student I’d met through the Cultural Consortium, a program that the Kennedy Center had to introduce inner-city kids to the arts in an active and participatory way. Thankfully for me, this student was kind enough to teach me a new way to be creative. That bead store trip was the beginning of a long-term love affair with all things bead, and a new way to think and communicate.
Beads have their own language and their own symmetry. I can say things in beads. I started to string beads together the same way I’d string words together to create a sentence or a paragraph. You can pick out a focal bead the same way you’d pick out a really cool word or a really interesting idea.
Recently I noticed that I had too many ideas. I was carrying around a notebook at work so I could keep up with all the ideas I wanted to write about. I was under the impression that ideas are like beads – when I come across them, I’d better collect them. I may never see them again. It was like I was on a bead-buying frenzy. After a while, it is time to sit down and start working with them.
Sometimes with beads I’ll start work on a project and not be sure where it is going. I’ll leave it in the saucer until I get some better clue as to what needs to happen next. Some saucers stay full. Some projects never get finished because I take apart the proto-necklace again and again until I realize that there is no way I can finish it. Maybe it wasn’t a viable project. Maybe it isn’t a project for me to finish. Maybe I don’t have the right kind of beads or the right mindset.
I now have “saucers” for my words. I’ve developed folders for note-seeds. I can return to them when I have time or inclination to work on/water them. I can revise/prune them later. I can add or subtract, just like with beads – but faster. If only beading had “copy and paste”!
Sometimes I have too many saucers, too many projects. This might be part of the nature of being creative, or the nature of being bipolar. Sometimes I think that the true essence of being an artist is knowing how to edit, and how to know when something is “done”. Sometimes I think another part is just being OK with the process and not worrying too much about what it is going to look like at the end until you get there.
Here are things I’ve “written about” in beads. When I learn how to post pictures I’ll update this post.
The Davinci code book.
The Griffin and Sabine series
A trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama.
What it is like to do water aerobics in the pool at the Y.
The history of the church, from Byzantine to Catholic/Orthodox to Protestant to now.
On prayer bracelets
Beads have been used for millennia as tools for prayer. In fact, our word “bead” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “biddan” meaning “to pray”. If a woman was using her rosary, she was said to be saying her beads, not her prayers. The two words were interchangeable. And, in a lighthearted vein, we can say that beads are truly “hole-y”.
I came up with the idea for prayer bracelets when I had a couple of friends who were struggling with different issues. One had a father who was terminally ill, and one was trying to defeat drug addiction. I wanted a way to let them know that I was praying for them that had some tangibility to it.
I believe that God made each of us with unique talents and gifts for a reason, so I decided to use my love of working with beads for this purpose. The response from my friends to these bracelets has inspired me to spread this way of praying.
Prayer bracelets can be for different intentions:
You can make one for someone else to let them know you are praying for them. All too often when we tell someone that we are praying for them, they forget a few hours later. With a beaded bracelet, they will have a constant reminder of your concern and love for them. It isn’t “preachy” or obvious – it is a subtle reminder. In this case, you will make a bracelet for your friend and think and pray about her or him while you make it. Wear it for about a week and pray for her or him every time you see the bracelet. Then give it to your friend, telling them about how you made it and wore it while praying for them the entire time.
You can make one to remind you to pray for others – with every bead representing a person on your prayer list. This came about because I had so many people on my prayer list that I needed some way of keeping up with it. I pulled out my bead boxes and selected a bead for each person on my list. This way, when I see it, I remember to pray for each person. I think it is also a good idea to have some “blank” beads, or ones that are not for any particular person. It is good to remember to pray for those who have nobody to pray for them. This reminds us that we are all part of one Body in Christ.
You can also make one for yourself to remind you of a goal that you would like to reach – stopping smoking, getting in better health, spending more time reading the Bible, etc. This is similar to offering a specific intention at Eucharist. Sometimes we need reminders to ourselves that we have made a commitment to improve ourselves.
No matter what you choose to do with your bracelet, it is my hope that you see this as yet another way to pray and connect with God. There are as many ways to pray as there are people on this Earth.
betsybeadhead 