Foundations
Foundational rituals are personal, often idiosyncratic and shaped around the realities of your life. For some, it might be morning pages, as Julia Cameron suggests in The Artist’s Way, for others, it might be a daily walk, a way of structuring your morning, a series of physical stretches that gets you into a certain headspace. The specifics matter less than the consistency. It’s the act of returning to something that is yours on a daily basis that matters at this foundational level.
The artist Chris Ofili, for instance, structured his studio in two distinct parts. One for preparation, one for making. He would begin the day making loose, abstract marks, letting his hand move without judgement or direction, then he would he move onto more detailed portrait work. This ritual feels like a warm up, a way for him to ease his way into the day, to give himself the freedom to access what was coming up without judgement of whether it was “good” or not.
Anthony Burrill spoke of something similar, in how he describes his own working environment. His studio in Kent is clean and ordered, not for aesthetic reasons (as you might imagine with a graphic designer), but because it signals to his brain that it’s time to work. That signal matters because it creates a boundary, a moment of transition from the noise of everything else into a space where you can actually think.
Daily rituals that exist entirely outside of briefs, clients, or outcomes are also important as they’re a way to stay in touch with your own instincts. Michael Bierut’s long-running drawing practice is a perfect example of this, as is Sho Shibuya’s daily paintings. They’re small acts, repeated over time, that allow ideas to accumulate without pressure and there’s something quietly radical in that. Making work that no one has asked for. Work that does not need to perform and simply exists because you made it.
On a deeper foundational level, designer Craig Oldham argues that what’s missing is not inspiration, but critical thought. The willingness to interrogate our own ideas. To ask difficult questions and attempt to understand not just what we’re making, but why and what the impact of it is. That kind of thinking takes time, and more than that, it takes a certain steadiness and trust in your own judgement, especially when everything around you is telling you to look elsewhere.
Which brings us, perhaps unexpectedly to the book Open to Work, by the LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky. Now, I appreciate that LinkedIn is an inherently cringe platform and a book by its CEO might not be the most obvious reference point for a conversation about inspiration and visual culture, but there is something useful in what he calls the five Cs: curiosity, courage, creativity, compassion, communication. He argues that as more of the technical aspects of work, and indeed the creative process, become automated, the qualities that will matter most are the ones that are harder to replicate, the ones that are human and specific to each of us individually.
Curiosity and collaboration, in particular, feel most pertinent to this conversation. Not as a vague trait or a nice to have, but as something you actively practise. According to Ryan, Einstein attributed his insights, “not only to raw intelligence but to sustained curiosity; ‘I have no special talents. I am just passionately curious.’… Innovation also demands partnership with other humans who are thinking deeply. Einstein didn’t work in isolation. He wrote to friends, tested ideas with colleagues and workshopped theories in long conversations.” So, with this in mind, is your next creative ritual a bi-weekly group of people you meet with to hold each other accountable and feedback on progress? Is it the decision to follow a line of interest, even when it is not immediately useful. To ask another question of yourself and your intentions? To seek out the opinion and skills of others to create something better than you might have on your own?