4-Brice Peterson: Creative Process

I'm obsessively organized. I like making lists for everything and agendas to get me through the lists. I also really like books, which, taken with my need for order, leads me to carry a notebook and pen around with me just about everywhere I go.

I started doing this so I could just keep track of all of the random thoughts that pop into and out of my head throughout the course of the day. I got tired of forgetting ideas that looking back upon seemed like they must have been so profound. So now, with my notebook, I manage to keep a good track of my thoughts before I forget them.

The thoughts themselves are all over the place. Usually, I tend to think in quotations. In other words, I attempt to make up philosophical maxims that seem really quotable. I may not even believe in these sayings, but they come to me every so often, and they sound good, so I keep them written down. From these quotes is where I often get ideas for art projects. Now, I'm the kind of lazy person who rarely ever acts on any of these project ideas, but at least writing them down prevents me from forgetting any potentially good ones. And a reason why I'm so lazy when it comes to art is because of the need I feel to perfect a concept, idea, or philosophy before putting it into practice with a work of art. I have a hard time trusting that diving into the art itself can be a worthwhile process and lead to its own important revelations. This isn't to say I believe one shouldn't just jump into the work; I myself just find it difficult to do so. Needless to say, I rarely perfect ideas, so I rarely start big projects on my own. I hope to change this.

Aside from the quotes, the other thoughts that come to me usually take the form of short phrases. Sometimes the phrases refer to a project idea, sometimes to images I find interesting or useful, sometimes even to the title of a nonexistent project. Some examples of these I picked at a glance: catholic courtesy, prophetic biography, lip-syncing poems, demonize or deify, backward raindrops, touch me not. I guess I really always think in terms of concepts. These short, terse phrases that mean something whether I know it or not. (Interestingly enough, I often find that I write poetry merely by stringing together such phrases.)

My mind seems to be the most active with these kinds of thoughts while I'm in bed, right before sleep. There is always a very intense and very real danger of forgetting whatever is going through my mind. But I think aside from this danger, what really gets my mind going is the darkness and the loneliness of the environment. There are no distractions for me, so my mind becomes more active. It's like it's trying to fill up the empty space around me that the lack of light and lack of people create. I find it sometimes hard to keep up with my racing thoughts, and it's especially difficult to hone these thoughts into something more concrete.

So, for now, I just continue to write things down and hope that something will stick.