Creative Courage

Henri Matisse liked to say, "Creativity takes courage."

His process of making art was always evolving, and he went through several periods of his professional life where he was primarily interested in finding a new way to make art.

I find myself in much the same vein in my own creative life. When I worked for Apple Computers in the late 1980's, I would advise people to buy enough computing power to last them 3-5 years. Today I would advise them to buy enough for 2 years. Are our lives and businesses adapting to the speed of change around us?

In an era where Facebook in one recent month was up 3 million 25-40 year olds, and the next month was down 250,000 (primarily due to their new privacy rules, I believe) and tweating was a fad that lasted months, not years, it is imperative that we are continually finding new ways to make art.

Where will we go to find these new avenues and processes? Matisse looked at color and light in new ways, tried different tools and techniques and experimented all the time. Sometimes this led Matisse to work on projects again and again until he felt they were complete (though I realize this flies in the face of some of the realities of living in such a fast-changing business environment).

So, how can we follow the example of this great artist today?