The Cost of Creativity

I have long been pondering what it means to be “creative.” Collaborative creativity is even a bit harder to grasp. This isn’t the first post I’ve written on this idea, yet I’m still intrigued by the thought that creativity is as much process as product. Provided you can get through both. One particularly difficult process I experienced last spring almost got the better of me and having no product at all was very nearly the result.

My second grade daughter had been studying oceans at school. Every May, about two weeks before the end of the school year, all the classes set up presentations of special projects they’ve been working on to show their parents at the annual “Share Fair.” Her teacher did not assign much homework throughout the year, but there were two special things she had to do at home as part of the research she had to do on her assigned animal, the Angelfish. Part I was an “Incredible Edible” version of her animal, and Part II was a costume that would make her look like the animal. I know what you’re thinking here…just bear with me on this one.

Two of my other children had this particular teacher before, so I knew the ropes. Unfortunately, the seven-year old I was working with this time did not. And she’s a lot more demanding and high-strung. And extremely perfectionistic. Did I mention that she’s also quite independent? Our trip to the grocery store for “incredible edible” materials was interesting. She had a certain idea in mind. So did I. She wanted to create something that was an exact replica of the picture in her head. I had only the thought to get out of there spending $4 or less. After much frustration and discussion back and forth, I convinced her that striped fruit roll-ups really would make acceptable angelfish replicas. She insisted that she needed multi-colored licorice to make her fish. I bought both (barely within my price range)and dragged her out of the store before she could change her mind.

At the risk of looking like the type of parent who turns everything into a Mom project so it looks perfect, let me qualify here that this is never the case with me. My preference is always to let the child take over and make it their project. The more imperfect it is, the more it evidences that they really did it themselves. The more perfect it is, the more I am impressed with their growth—that which comes with experience. But I do know that with this one, if there isn’t a little guidance up front, she’ll never even start.

Back at home, she looked disgusted with my idea to simply cut the fruit rolls into the shape of fish.
“But they’re too flat.”
“Angel fish are flat.”
“Not that flat.”
“What if we give them a little dimension by making their fins and eyes pop out a little?”
“No.”
“Can we just try one and see what you think?”
“Oh…OK”

One was all it took to convince her, especially since I was more than willing to let her have at it with the kitchen scissors to finish the rest with the paper stencil I’d made. Besides, she got to eat the scraps. And she found a use for her colored licorice that was an even more brilliant addition than trying to shape and structure them into fish. To her credit, she did almost all of it herself. Whew! Part one down, now for the hardest one to go.
I know I shouldn’t have waited until the last day to start the costume, but I really wasn’t that stressed about it. You see, many thought I was going to create this beautiful fabric-and-felt whimsical creation like it was a Halloween costume set to take first prize at the state fair. I had no intention of doing any such thing when her previous two siblings were perfectly happy with the stapled-together-colored butcher paper costumes we’d made. Two weeks before the fair, I’d responded to a class email thread in which a number of parents expressed extreme concern at the difficulty of this task, and I think I alleviated most of their fears. I said “This is no big deal, it’s just for a couple of hours in the evening. Just have fun with it. The teacher will even provide the paper for you.” As the mom on duty the day the paper was dispensed, I felt ready and in control. I knew we were set and could throw this project together in under an hour as soon as she came home from school the day of the fair. Had I done it much sooner, it could have been destroyed in the interim.

I forgot who I was dealing with.

“But Mom, that’s not exactly the right color.”
“Don’t Angelfish come in lots of different colors?”
“I want it to look just like that that one” she wailed, pointing to the image she’d pulled up on Google.
“Honey, I think that’s going to be just a little complicated to make every bump and stripe look just like that.”
“Hmmmph.” She folded her arms and stomped her feet and pouted “I HATE this! It's going to look so stupid!”
“Let’s just start with the shape of the fish and go from there, please.”
“Fine.” She laid down reluctantly on the paper (“…it’s getting all wrinkled…”) while I cut around her. Then I started cutting stripes. So long as they were a little wavy, she was willing to let me keep going, but with a scowl on her face the whole time. When we taped the stripes to the main body, I had to keep cutting, shaping, and adjusting until it met her critical eye. (Why couldn’t we have had the one-color seahorse again I wondered.)

I’ll spare you the details of how the rest of the fish got put together, how it didn’t fit right, how she needed to be able to duck her head in, how it needed fins to cover her arms, how she didn’t like them when they were done, and how we finally left the house with five minutes to spare. I was utterly spent and she was borderline happy with the result.

Until she arrived in her classroom and everyone told her how amazing she looked. Suddenly the whole process was successful. But she wouldn’t hear it from me.
Collaboration, I’ve found, is a painstaking process when working with two people who both have a vision but don’t see eye to eye. It can be done , but it takes a little love and a lot of determination to cooperate. Somehow, we both came out satisfied even after two frustrating evenings together. All that remains now is the memory of how happy Share Fair was that night. At least for her. I think I still choose to take a little more away from the experience because that’s what helps me to grow—like the fact that I actually exhibited barely enough patience to tolerate the whole ordeal, that I didn’t kill her in the process, and that I could leave my living room the disaster we’d made it in order to get her there on time to display her masterpieces.
Coming home from that night really drove home that point. As well as one other. Sometimes the real cost of creativity is simply cleaning up the mess afterward.

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