Creatives profiles - Eugene & Motown

Every weekend when I sit down to read the papers, I like to look for the stories of creative people that are usually profiled and I like to draw out key ideas and learnings from their stories. As a particular reference I often relate my thinking to concepts about creativity drawn from the work of Csikszentmihalyi , R Keith Sawyer, Vera John-Steiner and the like. These people view creativity as arising from the interaction of individuals and groups within social contexts rather than seeing it as something that is a special talent or ability only possessed by the gifted few (I'll post elsewhere a bit more about these kinds of views of creativity). Here's what I found this weekend.

Eugene Gilfedder is a Brisbane based actor and a bit of a renaissance man (writer, director, musician and so on) who is about to star as Hook in a production of Peter Pan. Eugene is a very talented and experienced actor, and really could be up there with Geoffrey Rush in terms of Australian actors on the international stage. However he has stayed put in Brisbane, created a life and a family and perhaps has not had the recognition he deserves outside of his home state. What I found interesting in this weekend's profile ('Enjoying theatre's Neverland' by Fiona Purdon in etc liftout, Courier Mail, jan 10-11, 2009, p 3) is that now that his children are finished school he is now open to more national and international work. There were a couple of things in this story that interested me... firstly the importance of the 'field' the gatekeepers and audiences who acknowledge and accept someone's creative work - one of the key components Csikszentmihalyi says is important for someone's creative work to be recognised and have impact. The field for Gilfedder's work has not be as wide as it could be to date, whilst he could be as talented as any famous actor around, his work has not been seen by or acknowledged by an international field. Could that now change as he embarks this year on a national tour with an independent production of 'Kursk'.

Also of interest were comments about Gilfedder's motivation and the kind of internal motivation that drives his work, rather than external success and rewards. He says "I've never been focused on the career, the blimbing of ladders, but my focus is on the stuff, the words and productions". Amabile and many others have talked about the importance of internal motivation as important for creativity and engagement and it seems that has been very much the driver for Gilfedder. Finally I was also interested in his comments about relating to the spirit of Peter Pan and how playing different roles keeps him young. In his book 'Creating Minds' Howard Gardner talks about creative people being able to retain the ability to see the world as if through the eyes of a child - retaining a kind of freshness and curiousity about the world. This is something that is evident in Gilfedder's approach to his creative work. I look forward to seeing how he goes in terms of finding a wider 'field' for his work in the years to come.

The Motown article "Can't Stop the Music" (in the Review section of Weekend Austrlian, Jan 10-11, 2009, pp 4-6) was interesting for a range of reasons, especially relating to the importance of the coalescence of opportunity, shifts in the culture and the rise of individuals and groups who had the right skill sets and ideas at the right time. This story marks the 50th anniversary on Jan 12 of the founding of Motown by Berry Gordy Jr in 1959. Gordy worked through disappointments and failure (dropping out of school, failure of first musical venture) to take the risk of borrowing money to found his own label and take their music national. The point I found particularly interesting in this article was the role of critique and reflection - the interactive work of their 'field' - in ensuring that what the label released was of a consistently high quality. Smokey Robinson says "We had Monday morning meetings. All the creative people were in those meetings, the writers, the producers. We would play our stuff for each other, critique each other's stuff and make suggestions on each other's stuff to make it better.... Many of the tracks were sent back and reworked, and reworked, until they became the hits that they became." Creativity isn't just about inspiration and individual expressions of ideas, good creative work benefits from critical reflection and feedback. The trick is to know what to listen to and act on and what to screen out!