photo credit: BriYYZ via photopin cc

We’ve all heard the stories about the Sistine Chapel. You know, the ones where Michelangelo lay on the scaffolding, 18 inches from the ceiling, for 4 years painting the figures of his masterpiece into wet plaster, and then another five years laboring in more wet plaster to create and finish “The Last Judgment” on the alter wall of the same lovely little chapel.

And we’ve all heard the story of the Mona Lisa – that DaVinci carried it around with him for decades, making minute changes, that it was never finished, according to its creator.  It exists as it is today because he died, not because he determined it was done.

photo credit: wallyg via photopin cc

Christopher Wren’s journey to build St. Paul’s Cathedral in London after the great fire that took Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre from the world may be less well known, but it took 50 some odd years from commission to completion.  He drew plans for five different buildings and even built enormous scale models of some, and then cast them aside and started over.  It took seven years to get from commission to the groundbreaking, and then more than 40 years to build it and decorate it, with the statues way above the ground level being the last pieces added, almost 10 years after parliament declared it finished. (It wasn’t finished, they were just tired of waiting.)

St. Paul’s Cathedral, photo by J Salmoral

These guys knew something about creativity, something I think we’ve forgotten about in our very busy and fast paced world. Creativity takes time.  Things of great beauty, and grace, things that take our breath away and inspire us to wonder at the marvel of mankind and at our God-given gifts are things that take time.  Masterpieces aren’t created in a flash of light and a spray of glitter, although the ideas that become masterpieces often begin that way.  But those ideas, bright and sparkly though they be, take many, many hours or weeks or months or years or even decades to complete.

I feel much better now about the amount of time I take to cook a script for one of our shows.  It doesn’t actually take me that long to write the script, a couple of Saturday evenings and it’s mostly done, but I sometimes spend months planning the show and thinking about it and talking to Michael and Stacey and Analiisa and Chadd, and sometimes I dream about it and I have scraps of paper everywhere with little scribbles of ideas and lyrics, in addition to a notebook of ideas I keep on my desk.

I leave myself voice messages with little ditties.  (I once recorded a song into my phone in a dressing room at Eddie Bauer.  I got some pretty funny looks when I came out, and it wasn’t the conservative blue sweater that drew stares.)  The time before the actual writing is where all the parts come together.  That’s my creative time.  Writing is the last step in the creation process that leads us to rehearsal and then performance, and finally applause.  (Please. I really like that part, so clap loud.).

Take a look at this video.  I got it from my son, Zy, who is 18 now, and occasionally uses wimp.com as a way to decompress after a long day of studying and learning and socializing.   I found this fascinating, and it explained a lot about my creative process, and the creative process of the giants of the creative world who came before me.

The difference between 10 seconds and 10 minutes is vast, and I like those pictures.  I’d hang some of those on my wall.  Seriously, they’d get a place of honor right next to my print of the Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam”.

photo credit: Sebastian Bergmann via photopin cc

-posted by Miss Allison, who give the craftsman at the frame shop plenty of time to think about what kind of frame would look best on her print. Because you just can’t rush beautiy.