…the face of creativity…

It’s never a good for me to look at some things for too long, or to be influenced by too much, or maybe it’s just not good to think about them at all.

I think life would be much simpler if I could turn my brain off for a while. Better yet – I’d just like to select the dots that my subconscious wants to connect. I’ve tried and I’ve yet to find a successful remedy to that, so for the time being I’m stuck pondering ideas such as this. Life is strange when you’re a passenger on a bus you don’t drive, and have no idea where it’s intending to go…

It all started with a simple bit of research on fondant. Finding all the pretty little sculptures you can make from it, and then adorn and accent them with food coloring. Worse, while thumbing away to find out about fondant, I discovered that people make swans and other little sculptures from pate choux… Suddenly, the whole of my thoughts are fixated on the things I’ve not done and probably need to attempt…

It didn’t help matters when a friend sent me a picture of a duck they’d roasted. It was trussed up like a little corpse – clever! The wing tips came together with a simple knot across the breast – such a familiar pose… All it was missing was a head, I thought. Then I thought it would be such a curious little exercise to carve potatoes or some other root vegetable to have a face and eyes and some grimace and pose it where the real head once had been…

If nothing else, perhaps it’s good to remind myself, it’s never too early to begin planning for Halloween…

Maybe it’s a simple glimpse into the nature of creativity though – the fact that it comes and goes like a tide – or diarrhea – and you just are better off not controlling it too much. Sometimes I think that’s where the pain really lies with it all – in trying to control it, or imagining that you get to do anything remarkable with it. It just happens and you can’t do anything about it really. Sometimes – more often than not – it wallows in the shallowest of gutters…

Lately I’m realizing a lot about creativity – what a blessing and a curse it is all at the same time – I’m not sure if anyone truly loves everything they are, or ever completely knows what to do with themselves, or what they really are, or what they’re supposed to do with the hand they’re dealt… Nobody lives up to their fullest potential… Maybe that’s just it – you’re not supposed to think of it too much – or worry about it or get caught up in how meaningful it might be to anyone else or even yourself… Sometimes you just have to exist and let your mind wander into all of the strange corners of the universe…