Drawing by Santiago Ramón y Cajal of two types of Golgi-stained neurons from the cerebellum of a pigeon

Cross-Disciplinary Creativity

I’ve been working on a number of different creative things in the past few days –

writing poetry
turning my novels over in my mind
starting a short story
how to depict myself in a comic strip.

Andreas Vesalius' Fabrica, published in 1543, showing the base of the human brain, including optic chiasma, cerebellum, olfactory bulbs, etc. — Andreas Vesalius’ Fabrica, published in 1543, showing the base of the human brain, including optic chiasma, cerebellum, olfactory bulbs, etc.

It struck me this morning that these are not all separate projects at all: these are all part of a larger work, and feed into each other. A larger, modular work. I’m creating the Ikea of creativity…or stories or something. If that makes sense.

I have no idea why it took me so long to realise this.

I have no idea how I didn’t realise before that I think in collage.

I’m always finding or making connections between disparate materials or scraps of information.

An ad on TV, a panel from a graphic novel, a topic to write for a client’s blog posts, a scene from my novel…the shape of the trees outside my window, someone’s photographs on tumblr, a piece of quantum mechanic theory, the shape of computer code with the visuals all stripped away. My mind moves at a billion miles a minute but that’s how it is and I’ve just realised that I should embrace this fact.

These constant connections and ways of making and of being make me and my work who I am and what it is.

And maybe that’s a great thing.

So, the connections I made this morning that are electrifying my brain into different runnels of creativity right now are:

This video

Scott McCloud: The visual magic of comics

Charles Babbage ==> The Difference Engine ===>

John Berger’s Ways of Seeing ===>

Different styles of visual representation

(a board on Pinterest that I’ve created that will be added to; kind of a collage of how I’m coming to see how to depict myself in comicbooks and how to shape characters in textual fiction)

========>

Howl by American poet Allen Ginsberg

(and this random illustration. I prefer to close my eyes and listen to different readings of it)

=====>

The Pablo Bird –

a poem by Pablo Neruda, visualised by me in Adobe Illustrator

=====> AND THEN ======>

The beautiful artwork of French comicbook artist Bengal

And, finally!

Pup Ponders The Heat Death of the Universe.

The end.

Full stop.

Rinse and repeat.

Repeat repeat.

How are these things connected? I have no idea. But they are. They all are. All of these things are spawning brain explosions and poetry and re-drafting and ways of seeing reality and biology.

Taking Charge of the Creativity Brainplosion