Overcoming Creative Constraints
There’s not enough time.
We don’t have enough budget.
There’s no way I’d be able to do that.
If you’re a creative person you know that limitations are everywhere.
Sometimes the boundaries are illusory ones we’ve made for ourselves, born out of self-doubt or the habit of procrastination. Other times we come hard up against brutal fact: you really don’t have the space, the time, the money, the materials or the experience to make the work you want to make in the way you want to make it.
How you choose to respond to these limitations may well become the measure of your success as an artist or creator.
And at a time when all of us are faced with constraints, not just to how we work but also how we live, perhaps it could be helpful to share the stories of a painter, a photographer and a musician; three individuals who refused to give in to the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their path.
I first came across the artist Chris Wilson when I read his memoir Horse Latitudes. The book is slim, yet every sentence crackles with electric intensity. A callous and traumatic…
