I’m not sure how much reading one should do about creativity;
I strongly feel that you become more creative by doing, but if you need a
boost, or want to make an in-depth study, one book I would recommend is Tom
Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters, edited by Paul Maher Jr.
(Chicago Review Press, 2011). Waits is
singer-songwriter whose recordings defy categorization. What endears his music to me is how he
combines a multitude of music styles (blues, jazz, traditional ethnic, folk,
hip-hop, rock, vaudeville, storytelling, etc.) with mysterious characters and
story lines into something completely his own.
That is what we all try to do as artists, we are indeed the sum of many
parts. The book is not a manual on
creativity, but it is fascinating reading on the creative process of one musician,
and there are many valuable insights into Waits’ inspirations and evolution as
a performer. Regardless of how his music
hits you (his voice is an acquired “taste”), there are lessons in the pages of
the interviews for all artists, performing and visual.
From a 1999 interview by Brett Martin in Time Out New
York, Waits advised that, “… you can take James White and the Blacks, and
Elmer Bernstein and Lead Belly – folks that would could never be on the bill
together – and that they could be on the bill in you. You take your dad’s army uniform and your mom’s
Easter hat and your brother’s motorcycle and your sister’s purse and stitch
them all together and try to make something meaningful out of it.” Of course, I love the sewing metaphor since
my focus is on textile art! Waits is
right on there. In my world, I put together
the works of Joseph Cornell, Viktor Schreckengost, and Claes Oldenburg in the
same museum exhibit.
Who would be on your concert bill or museum exhibit? That would make a great art quilt idea – an
advertising poster for your show of your influences…
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