Why is it that fear and doubt accompany creativity? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could just get on and paint or write or act without self-sabotage?

In a 2012 exhibition about the birth of abstraction at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, curators highlighted the way that the artists may have influenced one another. Titled “Inventing Abstraction: 1910–1925,” the show illustrated over 80 artists’ radical departures from the traditions of representational art, and opened with a large diagram depicting their network to show who knew each other (an interactive version of which is online), with the most connected, like Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky, toward the center.

I think it’s intimidating to build anything. No wait. It’s fucking terrifying to build anything. Because you’re creating something that has meaning to you, and putting it out in front of the whole world to see. And analyse. And criticise. And hate. And maybe, if you’re lucky, love.

As children, many of us would have played with inanimate objects and integrated them into our fantasy adventures—perhaps a TV remote became a rocket, or a shoe was a steamboat. One artist who is keeping childhood imagination alive is San Francisco-based digital artist Eric Geusz, who turns everyday objects into spectacular spaceship designs.

We confirmed the contention that the dark side of creativity exists, and is one that it’s important to acknowledge and understand. People can get hurt in surprising and original ways by practitioners of this dark craft. And, just as important, an entire set of misbehaviours with the potential to help us learn more about human creativity may be going unnoticed and ignored.

Comedian, writer, and actor Yassir Lester on finding the rhythm that works best for you, and being comfortable with letting ideas go.

Great news! You can be a creator. Follow these steps to find your inner writer, composer, finger-painter, chef, lyricist, entrepreneur or professional Tweeter.

Jeremiah 29:12-13 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.  From week…

Inefficient does not mean ineffective, and it is certainly not the same as lazy. You get things done – just not in the most effective way possible. You’re a bit sloppy, and use more energy. But don’t feel bad about it. There is real value in not being the best.

Overnight success. There is no such thing. Everything that results in sustainable fulfillment requires patience, overcoming of obstacles, and persistence. The majority of successful people you read about lose (a lot) before they win.

“Your subconscious mind works continuously, while you are awake, and while you sleep.” — Napoleon Hill

Getting in the zone and staying there.

Cartoonist and artist Julie Doucet on what it feels like to look back at her expansive body of work, and the limits of making personal work.

A 2019 New Year's Eve letter for TCI about drawing and videogames, by artist Jeffrey Alan Scudder.

How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies "originals": thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals — including embracing failure. "The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they're the ones who try the most," Grant says. "You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones."

Why you need to stop basing your self-confidence on how much and what you accomplish. Starting today.

Extended play albums are all the rage as of late. Indeed, more and more often these days, artists and bands are finding the notion of releasing ten or more tracks at the same time all but passé, opting instead to parse out their material in four- to six-song doses. Nobody knows this more than the members of Australia's Planetshakers, whose last eight efforts have been put out in the EP format.

Looking for some inspiration? Struggling with the same problem for days? Try these quick, easy and free exercises proven to boost creativity!

When you’re just starting out, it can be hard to know where to begin with a creative undertaking, how to sustain it over time, and how to develop it into something you’re proud of. But as you learn the ropes and become more comfortable with your voice, tools, time, and vision, a creative process may emerge that makes it easier to start, sustain, and finish things. So how does one develop their own unique creative process over time? The interviews and guides below all offer practical wisdom on how to structure your work and practice in ways that can keep things flowing in positive and productive directions.

We think creativity is a uniquely mysterious force. But with Google's Magenta producing musical symphonies, some fear AI threatens to make the imagination redundant. Is human creativity no more than mechanics? Will AI transform and enrich the human experience? Can robots be creative? Or is there something strange about creative thought that separates humans and machines?