Pull the thread.
Open to collaborations, commissions and conversations.
I don't think creativity is a skill you switch on in the studio. I think it's a way of looking at the world. Wanting something to be the best it can possibly be, doing whatever it takes to get it there, and knowing that nobody, including me, really has the answers. That way of looking makes you a better artist. It also makes you a better partner, a better friend, a better colleague. It's all the same muscle. Here's what I've learned about it.
Everyone's way of seeing is as valuable as mine. Not because everyone makes art, but because everyone notices things no one else does. The artist's only difference is the decision to take that seeing seriously, and to share it. Creativity isn't a talent you have or don't. It's attention you choose to pay.
Most of us assume our passion will stay a hobby, and something else will be the real job that pays for it. For years, advertising was my real job. The personal work lived around it. But the things we do purely out of love have a way of growing roots when we keep doing them long enough. You don't always have to chase the shift. Sometimes you just have to keep showing up until it happens.
This one took me years to accept. Sometimes you make two pieces you believe are your best. One reaches people. The other disappears. And the reason might have nothing to do with the work. It came out the same day as something louder. The timing was off. The feed was busy with a bigger story. There's so much about why work connects that we don't understand. All you can do is make something good, put it out, and let it go. That's all there is.
I've seen a lot of talented people never get anywhere. Not because they lacked talent, but because they lacked the stubbornness to keep showing up. Talent gives you a head start. The work ethic decides whether you finish the race. For some people, the work ethic outruns the talent completely.
Fifteen years of agency brainstorms taught me what collaboration isn't. It isn't everyone in a room trying to get their own idea in. Real collaboration is when everyone works toward whatever is best for the whole thing. Whether the idea is yours or someone else's doesn't matter. If you're truly invested, you want the best idea to win. Not your idea. The best rooms I worked in felt like that. The worst ones felt like a competition nobody won.
What makes work great is the personal. With all its imperfections. With all its strangeness. How you see the world differently from everyone else is the whole point of sharing your work. Derivative voices find what other people seem to want and repeat it, because they've seen it succeed. Sometimes that works for a while. It never lasts. It never changes anything. The artists who change things are often the ones you don't understand at first, and slowly come to love.
“I don't really like this, but I think people will.” That's a losing way to play the game. We're not smart enough to predict what someone else will like. Nobody is. Make what's personal to you. Push it as far as it can go. Push the edges. The people who are meant to resonate with it will find it.
Have you ever had an idea, didn't act on it, and six months later saw someone else do it? They didn't steal it. It was simply time for that idea. It was in the air, and someone caught it. I think ideas move like waves. Anyone can catch one if they're paying attention, they see it coming, and they paddle every time they get the chance. Sometimes you catch the ride, and it's remarkable. It doesn't come from planning. It comes from the doing. If you don't make it, maybe someone else will. So make it.
We all live in the same world. We all see the same things. The best artists simply have a better antenna for what's coming through. Part of that comes from not fully believing what the structure around you assumes to be true. Questioning the obvious. Being surprised by things everyone else walks past. That surprise is where the work starts. It's why something unexpected makes you laugh, and why a strange image stops you in a feed. An artist isn't someone who invents from nothing. It's someone who notices first.
We're always collaborating with the world around us. Taking things in, letting them change us. A phrase overheard in a café that solves a title. A texture on a wall that becomes a background. A recommendation you'd normally ignore, that turns out to be exactly what the piece needed. When you're open and looking, these clues show up all the time. And often, right when you need them. What clue showed up for you this week, right when you needed it?
YEKTA.
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overthink(paint)ing
Open to collaborations, commissions and conversations.