Here’s an interesting video, working with the idea that better ideas take more time:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/jgvx9OfZKJw]

There’s definitely something to it, but I think it’s part of something bigger. For me, time certainly helps—but only to a point. After I’ve had so much time to develop an idea, and then take more time to play with it even further, I can get outside of the idea and the project and lose my momentum. Creating the right environment helps me make better ideas, and time is certainly a key player.

There are other factors that make for the right environment, too: the actual physical location of where I’m working, my financial security, my relationship with the project, how well I slept the night before, etc. It’s the situation I’m working in. The constraints and freedoms. And it’s not all good things, either. Not having enough time can help create the right environment just as well as having plenty of it. Having to work fast and rushed might be the best thing for this project, but working with a wealth of time might be better for another.

Part of our role as creators is to explore our options. Most of us feel very limited when we are told exactly what to create and how exactly to do it, because we weren’t given any opportunity to explore or express. We feel left out of the process—used—because the resource of our own experience and knowledge has been ignored. If we are truly creative, then we will find ways to make what needs to be made. We will find or create the right environment.

When the right environment is created, we have the permission we need to create. Sometimes it comes in the form of actual permission, such as from a parent, teacher, boss, or even ourselves. More often it comes in the form of circumstance. Things line up for better or worse, and put you into a situation where you feel allowed to create.

Anyway…my favorite part of this video is the end, where each child has been given more time to create their picture, giving them the opportunity to settle back into their own imaginations, rather than a set of instructions. Each picture comes out unique from the rest and is closer to an authentic image. And that’s what I’m really after: creating authentic images.