Why ‘The Create Method’

Hey, welcome to my creativity blog

Which I am tentatively calling 'The Create Method'.

Two questions:

- Why am I doing this?

- Why The Create Method

I am the Artistic Director of Babel Theatre (we'll get into the phrase Artistic Director at another point soon). Very simply, Babel make theatrical productions and tour them. We've won some awards, got some nice reviews, and some really great people have said some really nice things about the work we make.

Alongside that, we lead workshops and teach at Arts Institutions around the UK. We've worked with Actors, Dancers, Singers, Theatre Makers, Orchestras, Operas, Directors, Producers, Drag, Circus & Street Performers, Animators, Musicians, MC's and lot's of other people who don't neatly fall into a genre.

One commonality I have noticed amongst working with all of these groups, is despite working in the Creative Industries and utilising the most ingenious Creativity on a regular basis, most people didn't know WHAT it was they actually did, or in particular HOW they did it.

This, by the way has been true of myself for a long time also.

Cooking is regularly one of the most creative parts of my day. I:

- gather ingredients mostly on a base urge of 'I like that thing'

- look at what we've got and decide on a loose idea of the type of cuisine or taste I'm going for.

- (I might at this point, have a quick look at a recipe or the way someone else has done it to get some pointers. But I quickly go rogue and don't come back to it)

- make some decisions on methods informed by ingredients, i.e. I know I need a pot to boil and not a pan to fry pasta

- begin adding ingredients in what might seem like a 'that will take longest' or 'this is the main ingridient' order

- spend quite a lot of the process here adding things in an excited frenzy entertaining my Dexter's Laboratory dreams

- allow the various methods to do their thing

- try and present it as pleasantly as possible, and make sure to do that multiple plates on one arm thing when laying the table.

- Eat the food, normally with my partner, discuss the food a little bit, discuss other things

What is interesting to me, is the above, is roughly not going to be massively different across the spectrum of Cooking Expertise or Capability, the process apart from a few tweaks of intention in the various stages, is largely the same for everyone.

AND

When doing it, we know, exactly what part of the process we are in, what order it has to happen in and we understand clearly that it is going to get very problematic and very messy if we start doing some things in the wrong order.

If I pour boiling water onto the hob before I've decided I need a pot to cook pasta ...

I am doing this to document my own journey in developing creative practices, frameworks and thinking models.

I have called it 'The Create Method', largely everyone is going through the same process, with a few interesting tweaks.

I will be exploring practical methods for thinking about Creativity, how you can apply that to whatever field you work in

AND talking to other people to explore their unique processes and methods.

Maybe at the end of it I'll be able to say this is THE Create Method

But for now ...

What is your method for creating?

Hit reply to let me know

I'm not always able to respond.

But I do always read.

Joseph 'The 3 star Chef' Lynch