Creativity…and Cheez Doodles

C.E. Grundler

I’m going to admit something I’ve kept under wraps about myself for a long time now.

I used to paint boats.

I’m not just talking about with Interlux. I mean ‘paint’ as in the framed stuff you hang on walls. More specifically, I painted highly detailed, highly realistic watercolors (a very unforgiving medium – you can’t just paint over your mistakes, in fact, you can’t MAKE mistakes,) usually on commission. Boats, commercial and historic aviation, commercial trucking.

And it paid the bills for a number of years. I’d sold paintings worldwide. One room of my house was my studio, and I’d work 8-10 hour days, painting until my fingers cramped and my eyes hurt.

But the further along I progressed, the more I began to lose all enjoyment in what I was doing. I finished the commissions I had waiting. And then one day I simply packed up all my brushes, paints and supplies, and put them on a shelf in the back of a closet. Someday, I promised, I’d paint again.  Someday – when that spark of desire returned.

That had to be about 15 years ago. Every so often I look at that shelf, shrug, and close the closet door.  I look at some of the paintings I’d done at the time, the ones I’d done for my own personal collection, and I see them as if they’d been painted by a complete stranger.

I know they’re mine, I can remember painting them, but that’s it. Strange, I know, and I’ve always tried to figure what switch flipped to turn something that had been such a passion into something I could completely turn off. And it’s something that has always worried me – could my writing be next?

I don’t think so. While there are many parallels between painting, writing, and so many other creative endeavors, there are differences as well. For painting, at least the painting I did, it was a VERY solitary activity. And while I may be a bit (cough) of an introvert, the thought of hours of exile in that studio grew unbearable. I could think about painting constantly, but unless I had my brush in hand, holed up in my studio, I wasn’t able to work.

Writing, however, has no boundaries. I can and do write when and wherever I choose. I jot notes while I’m on line in the deli. When I wake at 2 a.m. At a red light All I need is my imagination and some means of transcribing whatever rattles through my head. I’ve even ‘texted’ myself notes for my files. With the painting I did, there were no revisions, no adjustments. One wrong brush-stroke and 70 hours of work were as good as scrap paper.

Writing, on the other hand, is all about re-writing. My painting required absolute concentration; my writing flows best when my mind is free to wander. Both involved intense scrutiny of the world around me, absorbing details then communicating them to others through that medium. But each individual painting, the sum of migraine-inducing concentration, was seen by few, while my writing, once done, is out there for a limitless audience.  Though ultimately writing was just as much work, if not more, it was also more fun and a more satisfying creative outlet. Oh, and I can eat Cheez Doodles while I write. Trust me, when you’re painting with watercolors, it’s definitely a ‘No Cheez Doodles’ zone. Come to think of it, that alone, could have been it. I mean, really, how creative can a person be when deprived of Cheez Doodles?

These days, when I paint a boat, it’s with a roller, and a bag of Cheez Doodles close by. But what about the rest of you? Does anyone else wear more than one ‘creativity’ hat, or have you hung one up for another, and if so, why?

 

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