The More You Know, the Better You Can Imagine

Tharp, Twyla
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life: A Practical Guide
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006

“Memories are slippery, like butter, “ a fifth-grader announced at PS 116 in Manhattan. He was reflecting on Hilary Easton’s dance theater piece, It’s All True. As Lincoln Center Institute teaching artists we are endeavoring to layer opportunities for experience, reflection, and articulation about the creative experience. This student’s answer had it all, poetically phrased and succinctly said: Easton’s dance explored the slippery qualities of memory, point-of-view, and the sensuality of forbidden pleasure (in this case, the unadorned taste of butter). This fifth-grader articulated the kind of connection we teaching artists hope to facilitate as we design workshops, which, at their best, are mini-templates for creative, imaginative experience and deep interaction with a work of art. Secretly, I have a personal footnote to the LCI model; I am hoping for lifers—students and teachers who discover their own life-long devotion to art, art-making, and a creative life through experience and interaction with a work of art.

Twyla Tharp is not so secret about her creative agenda for people from all walks of life. In The Creative Habit, her “self-help book for the creatively challenged,” (The New York Times proclaims it so right there on the cover), Tharp explains, “Creativity is not just for artists. It’s for business people looking for a new way to close a sale; it’s for engineers trying to solve a problem; it’s for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way” (7, emphasis from the original).

I would like to add that The Creative Habit perfect for classroom teachers wanting to apply principles of aesthetic education and LCI’s Capacities for Imaginative Learning to their entire syllabus; it’s for students wanting to increase the flexibility of their thinking; it’s for teaching artists who would like to apply the basics of their craft to their classroom experiences.

The Creative Habit is also perfect for people who believe—or may come to believe after reading this book—that creativity is the result of rigor, diligence, and a defined everyday process. Tharp certainly hammers that point home with personal and historical anecdotes about established artists’ work habits, then underscores that point with very do-able exercises. “That’s why this book is called The Creative Habit.” She explains, “Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That’s it in a nutshell” (7).

To get you started on the path, Tharp offers habits, routines, and rituals from people as diverse as herself, a yogi, a chef, a writer, a businessman, a lawyer, athletes, the composers Igor Stravinsky, and Beethoven. They don’t have to be complex; they just have to be useful to you and repeatable on a daily basis. For example, Tharp reduces the yogi’s ritual preparation to: “Candle. Click. Yoga” (16). It doesn’t get much more concise than that!

Tharp clears the mystique away from the creative act and re-casts it in the light of everyday life, lived at its most conscious. In Chapter 1, “I Walk into a White Room,” she addresses the terror of the blank sheet of paper, the empty canvas, the blank scoreboard, the test paper. She promises, “If you read through the book and heed even half the suggestions, you’ll never be afraid of a blank page or an empty canvas or a white room again. Creativity will become your habit” (11).

And it’s true. One of my ongoing terrors as a teaching artist is related to the fact that my activities are always devised (in some cases planned in partnership with a classroom teacher) specifically for the group I will be working with. That is the juicy, creative side of my job; the flip side is that before I plan I have rarely met the group I will be working with. As an LCI teaching artist I am continually walking into a white room filled with strangers, armed with the work of art. By reflecting on Tharp’s rituals of preparation—which she is insistent on the defining and refining of—I begin to articulate my own habits. I am actually armed with LCI’s Capacities for Imaginative Learning, my life and habits as a dancer, and even my early morning yoga practice. For example, I have found that within the context of the workshop, it takes the jitters out on both sides of the leader-participant equation to warm-up, to have a physical get-to-know-you period each meeting. Those four or five minutes of preparation focus everything that is to follow.

Tharp agrees. She suggests that her writer friend who cleans when he has writers block primarily needs to move a bit to get the creative juices flowing and dusting happens to fit the bill; she believes in physically warming up, moving around if you are stuck. “Everything that happens in my day is a transaction between the external world and my internal world,” she states. “Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it. Without the time and effort invested in getting ready to create, you can be hit by the thunderbolt and it’ll just leave you stunned” (10).

She is also a believer in unearthing “Your Creative DNA” (Chapter 3) and directs you to “Harness Your Memory” (Chapter 4). On pages 45-46, Tharp provides a 33 question “quiz” to give you an opportunity to define “Your Creative Autobiography.” Her own answers are on page 54-59.

By articulating answers to seemingly simple questions like “How do you begin your day?” and “What are your habits? What patterns do you repeat?” I discovered a gap between the habits I crave (like practicing yoga before work everyday, taking regular ballet class with my beloved teacher, eating and preparing raw food two or three days a week), and the reality of good intentions falling prey to the tidal wave of scheduling and obligations that comprise a NYC artist’s life. Just by examining my responses those three questions, I can begin to close the gap between reality and unfulfilled need. There are thirty more questions on this quiz—I found it to be very enlightening. Feel free to write your own creative autobiography and post it in the comments section. You can start with these three questions. It is a great place to start a conversation on creativity and might be your first step towards defining your own creative habits.

Tharp is unflinchingly honest and direct in her description of her own process, her personal creative history, and in her experience of these exercises. She states, “The asking of the questions … sets you the task of learning as much as you can before you start putting paint to canvas, chisel to stone, finger to keyboard. And this questioning process doesn’t stop once you’ve begun. The more you know, the better you can imagine” (177, emphasis mine).

Tharp is a tough taskmaster, toughest on herself and her own process. But as you read the book, you really feel her on your side. She knows you can have a deeply creative life—she wants that for you. “When it all comes together, a creative life has the nourishing power we normally associate with food, love, and faith” (243). She wants that life for you so badly that she wrote a step-by-step manual so we can learn the creative habit and use it for life. I’m in!

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