I.T.A.P week seven: 23.11.2010

It takes more than just a creative mind to produce innovative and exciting work, the space in which you work in is just as important; as it can provide seemingly endless inspiration through the collections and ideas that are often stored there.

My workspace when I’m in Birmingham is always my room; although it’s cluttered and messy it is a very personal space filled with seemingly unimportant objects and pieces of paper. I can’t work at a desk very well, so I tend to spread my work out on my bed and do my work there instead. But when I go home to Sheffield it spreads out even further and I can easily take over my bed, or any available floor space.

I’ve figured that I work this way because when I sit at a desk and try to work, I feel cramped and like it restricts the flow of my work and ideas. Whereas sitting on my bed or on the floor means I can spread out, throw things around and just generally be free with myself and my work.

A workspace that I have found particularly inspiring is that of Sarah Coleman; as unusual as it sounds it’s wonderfully cluttered, yet everything seems to have a space – there’s so many intriguing objects and drawings scattered around; it’s actually the kind of area I’d aspire to be able to work in; everything there is within arms reach, so that no matter what manner of inspiration it is, when it strikes it’s easy to put it onto paper.

The focus behind Overcoming Mindsets is breaking routines, although some routines are very useful in how we manage our time etc. routines within idea development is something that needs to be avoided as eventually it can leave you in a very tight and restricting comfort zone.

 The main problem I have with habitual thinking is the way I develop my RVJ; I have problems with seeing a variety of possible ideas – I jump at the first one I have, which I worry may be starting to lead me down a path of similarity. I also have times when I am easily influence by outside factors that I don’t want to mix in; if I’ve been working on a personal piece I sometimes end up trying to bleed that idea into my projects, no matter how irrelevant.

I think the best way for me to begin to relax my habitual thinking is to not get so tense about finding a good idea straight away and being more open to allowing my thoughts and ideas to change and develop at their own rate and direction.

I also believe that I may be settling into a comfort zone that keeps me in a similar area each time I am given a project – by taking a brief step back to observe my comfort zone it would be possible to slowly push my boundaries and extend my skills.