The Limitless Potential of Limitations
Image Description: A red brick wall with a window that is blocked by red bricks. Image courtesy of Ulrike Leone (“ulleo”) via Pixabay.
Today, as I took my dog on a walk, I was reflecting on all the limitations that have been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past six months since much of the world went into lockdown, I have not eaten restaurant food (not takeout, delivery, or outdoor seating). I have not traveled anywhere further than an hour away. I have not been on any form of transportation other than my own car. I have not had a haircut. I have not been to my office, a library, a gym, a store, a movie theater, or a friend’s home. While your pandemic-related limitations may vary depending on where you live, who else is in your household, and your comfort levels with risk, no doubt you have also been impacted by significant limitations.
The amazing thing though is that we adapt to these limitations and few of them are insurmountable. Institutions and individuals have mostly helped with adaptation. Libraries increased the number of books available digitally. Many of us adapted to cooking more at home (recipes are endless on the Internet and there are even Facebook groups like Cook What You Got (Don’t Let it Rot) to help you make the most of the food you have). My production partner Adele started making masks. Much of our work, school, home, and travel lifestyles necessitated drastic modification. When friends celebrated birthdays, we adapted to holding them on a video conference call and even found creative ways to hold surprise parties and play games.
When I started jonesing for travel, I joined a birdwatching friend on local adventures, discovering trails, gardens, and hidden spots where we could take physically-distanced nature walks and adapt to the rhythm of birds who were going about their bird lives.
With pools slow to open and ocean beaches packed with people, I found a lake that was near empty if you went early on a weekday. It was far enough away to feel like a mini-vacation.
Image Description: The author standing in front of a pond and trees as she looks through binoculars on a birdwatching outing.
So what does any of this have to do with creativity? Well actually this IS creativity in action. After all, creativity is all about problem-solving, using available resources: translating lyrics and melody from the brain to the mouth or instrument, whittling a block of wood into shapes that transform it into a sculpture, reviewing and condensing hundreds of hours of raw footage into a film. As artists, there is also creativity in figuring out how to carve out a livelihood based on our craft or in spite of it.
Often the challenges we face are ones of making use of time and energy. While some of us may have more time now, is that translating into our artistic practice? We may also now be faced with new limitations:
Navigating a new economy that puts even less value on art. Those of you freelancers trying to navigate unemployment systems not built for our work realities know what I am talking about.
Caring for children or elders may suddenly have added to our workload to fulfill the role of caregivers and home schoolers.
Commuting may be a thing of the past for those of us lucky enough to be able to work from home or unlucky enough to be out of work. But one of the pluses of commutes is that they were often transitional times where we could do some of our best creative thinking.
Walking is another activity that often yields new ideas. But what if you live in an urban area where what were mind-wandering strolls now feel like stressful obstacle courses to avoid close contact with others?
Depression, brought on or exacerbated by the pandemic, can sap us of energy and motivation.
These new limitations are real. Though they are averse to our normal routines, they need not defeat us. By confronting them head on, we can discover their potential powers.
This is where we can be most creative. If our situation imposes limitations on our artistic practice, how can we adapt to those limitations and keep our expectations realistic? If we have our kids home all the time, can the experience of creating something be done together as a form of play? If we are caregivers for elderly relatives, can we hear their stories and record them through our art? If we are feeling down, can we commit to even 10 minutes a day of making art as a way to grapple with our anxieties or to escape them temporarily? If we are feeling like so much in our world is out of control, can our art be the thing over which we maintain some of it? If the news is getting you down, what happens if you tear up a newspaper and create a collage of hope out of the words? Can limiting our exposure to negative stimuli and using our own materials to express how we are feeling provide some healing?
For inspiration, we can witness the work of other artists. Just as I was impressed by the Italian musicians who took to their balconies to sing and play in the early days of the pandemic when they were in total lockdown, I also began following how different artists found creative approaches and workarounds to the pandemic.
Dutch National Ballet dancers are connected in lockdown by choreographing a dance that brought them together, even as each dancer danced alone.
Maryland-based jazz musician, composer, and educator Halley Shoenberg has been jamming six feet apart from bandmates in front yards. She even wrote a timely ditty for her latest lawn concert.
A Welsh environmental sustainability group sponsored an online art exhibition of pieces reflecting on the lockdown.
Tomás Corredor, a Colombian director and photographer based in Kenya is in the middle of a 366-Day Lo-Fi Project where he is sharing a film every day, small love poems. While the project pre-dated the lockdown, it has become more poignant because of it.
In my own case, in addition to continuing to write the companion book to this blog and accepting a temporary hiatus from a long-term film project, I made a pivotal return to painting and mixed media. I created a series of cards by painting over the fronts of some ho-hum thank you notes and sent them as little pieces of art to people in my life. It is a way of showing gratitude, supporting the post office, and surprising friends, family, and colleagues with handwritten notes in an era when most of the mail we receive are bills and junk.
Image Description: Four handpainted thank you cards. The first is of some grass beneath a sky full of fluffy clouds and birds. The second is a colorful sunburst. The third is of a woman wearing a protective mask. The fourth is of an anthropomorphized sun wearing a protective mask. All paintings by Erica Ginsberg.
Perhaps most importantly, it was a small and achievable creative task to devote part of a Sunday afternoon to making a bunch of cards. For others, it might be easier to dedicate just 30 minutes every day or several days a week to some creative activity. It’s not as hard as you may think to reduce your social media scrolling time and devote that time to something creative instead, Adapting to limitations by creating something in spite of them is not just therapeutic and gratifying, but may also lead to exciting new directions in your artistic life.
As the film director Orson Welles reputedly once said, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitation.” How can you use this moment to improve your artistic practice by embracing the power of limitations?
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