Blog: Over And Over Again

 Featured image: Fall Bouquet

Creativity is the opposite of doing the same thing over and over again. Doing the same thing over and over hampers creativity, exploration, invention and most importantly, independence. Doing the same thing over and over is an easy path to take but boring. Repetition encourages conformity. Conformity leads to taste and how we can see things. This in turn, leads to pillows matching your “wall décor.”

Repetition is the enemy of art. While it is a good tool when it comes to design elements and principles, it definitely stifles uniqueness. I always begin a work by searching for something different. I search and explore, trying to find a way to do things differently. I don’t always succeed, but when I do I call the work a glorious success, well for me anyway. It becomes a work that I treasure and every time I look at it I ask, "How did I do that?" I know it can never be repeated.

For example, last year about this time I painted a work called "Milkweed Pods." It was very fall-ish. I remembered doing another piece I called milkweed pods in the the early 2000’s. No repetition here. Growth and change.