"I was asked about creativity. I have a hard time defining it. It's elusive. Most of the time I find myself being creative when I'm not really paying attention. It's a liminal thing, halfway between intense focus and relaxation, a place somewhere between the monkeys chattering in my head where intuition and the gut get together and swap ideas.
Picasso said a lot of interesting things. One of them was something like the following..."Creativity comes, but it has to find you working."
Then again, he may have replaced creativity with inspiration. .
I can't remember. In any case, to me they're nearly one and the same. You're inspired to be creative and you're creative when you're inspired.
The two aren't always reliable though.
That's when discipline comes in. The discipline of making something, every single day. I value that discipline more than the creativity or the inspiration becauseI know both will come when I am engaged with the work. I just have to shut up long enough to hear them. They whisper, real quiet like, but when you know what to listen for they can tell you some incredible things. You might just be surprised. I know I am on a daily basis.
I just surround myself with the things that fire me up, roll up my sleeves and get to work. I let the creativity and inspiration sort themselves out.
They're smart. They know what they're doing."
-Vincent Nappi (Author/illustrator)