My System for Creative Development

The Creative Toolbox

I have a toolbox I use at my studio but you can't see it. I carry it around with me all day and no one knows. It is the most valuable thing I own and no one can ever take it from me.

There is this thought that I heard on the Creative Pep Talk Podcast. Creativity isn't coming up with something that no one has ever seen before. It is taking two existing things and putting them together in a new way.

With that in mind I began to deliberately assemble my toolbox a few years ago. Each tool is a creative process or concept that I've found and developed.

I've always hand dyed my leather work. So that was the first tool in my toolbox. As I explored that process I began to develop new tools. From hand dyeing came color blocking and two tone dyeing.

Two Tone Ensign. Indigo + Chestnut. 2019

From there sprang indigo dyeing and walnut dyeing. Watching the way dye soaked into the leather gave me the idea of scratching the leather to let the dye seep in more in certain places. That gave way to sgraffito.

Each step I take develops a new tool. When I need to come up with a new idea I look at the tools I have and decide which two to put together.

Working with the color blue is a tool I use a lot. What happens if I combine blue and sgraffito? Or can I do blue and walnut.? What kind of blue? I have a few in my toolbox.

I think this is part of what makes a successful artistic practice. Constantly developing new tools but also having a very clear understanding of what those tools are.

Sgraffito Baseball Stitch Card Case. Chestnut. 2019

Picasso has a blue period. VanGough applied paint with a palette knife. Thom Yorke uses falsetto. Tim Burton has the musical. Each one a tool picked up and combined with something else in a way that no one has done the same way before.

I suspect that if you asked your favorite artists what their tools are they could list them out. The really cool part is that it's those tools that come to define the work. The tools you have and the way you use them is what defines your style.

Some of the tools in my toolbox:

Shades of blue (Indigo, Prussian, Sapphire, Aquamarine)
Juxtaposing cool colors with warm colors (blue and brown)
Color blocking
Mottled surfaces
A wide range of shades from light to dark
Clean lines and simplicity
Using natural light
Using empty space
Embracing idiosyncrasies of natural processes (celebrating the marks and scratches)
Creating lines and scratches (sgraffito)

Some tools I'm working on developing now:

Batik wax resist
Leather paint
Old photographic processes
Story telling
Goat skin leather

What is in your toolbox? Can you make a list? It will be hard at first but that is because you are just starting to define your tools. Pick something and develop a small body of work around just that one tool. Repeat that process until you have a couple tools in your toolbox. Then start combining.

The Creative Toolbox: My System for Creative Development