Creativity and originality : The myth of pulling it out of thin air

"Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme."

(Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.) 

- Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier

I grew up in France and eventhough I had international classes and very thorough English classes, my education was one based on a French mentality. Having teachers from different cultural backgrounds with different ways of teaching and thinking offered me with a chance to take a step back and appreciate the differences. There is much to say about the matter but I will only highlight one small part of it that struck me and takes a big part in my reflexion on how an artist and a creator can perceive himself and what expectations he has towards his skill, talent and what you could call "creativity". 

In France, we learn from great minds from the past. People who've dedicated their life to one subject or another. If people reference them, if the national education system reference them, surely they must've got it right. We build on top of our heritage, it being knowledge, architecture, history or any other topic. France is an old country that wasn't built yesterday. In comparison, the United-States of America in quite young as a country. Without going further about history, we know that mordern America was built by conquerors seeking a new land to build a new world. This is were the myth of the self made man started and blossomed. This is the difference that interests me today writing this.

There is a battle most artists have fought : the one of talent vs work. More than often, the first compliment that comes to mind when admiring the work of an artist is to qualify him as "talented", "gifted". It can be very flattering at first until you dig deeper into the meaning of this idea. Gifted, talented, as if one was born with the answer in mind, a brush in his hand, a talent other didn't have the luck to be born with. I'm not saying there's no such thing as talent, something I'd rather call facility. But too often this kind of praise sets aside all the hardwork, time and effort an artist puts in his art.
There are always exceptions of course but I firmly believe that art doesn't come from sole inate talent. It takes time, it takes work, it takes process and thought and it also takes opportunities, luck even. As does everything in life. Even for a self made man.
Everything in the world is connected, we share the same planet, we breathe the same air and with internet the things we share are more and more numerous each second. The world and life is made of infinite butterfly effects linking everything and everyone in a small way. Even a newborn taking his first breath of air is already linked to the entire history of humanity, his future life already affected by his gender, his race, his localisation in the world, the life his parents led before his birth... I believe it is the same with ideas.

The most common image associated with having an idea is the one of a lightbulb appearing above one's head, shining bright. Where's the cord ? Where does the juice come from ? Nowhere. The idea just popped. It's just genious, it's just creativity, it's like magic.
It is said that in our dreams, we cannot imagine new faces, only see faces we've seen before in real life and maybe have forgotten. (note : this claim has no real scientific source to back it up) Just as we can't imagine a new color, we can't imagine and create something that we haven't somehow, somewhere, seen already. Sure we can invent new things otherwise there would've been no evolution to civilization and we can also make up things that do not exist in real life like dragons, unicorns. But evolution is improvement of what already exists and dragons and unicorns are only chimeras of existing animals. Everything has a starting point, a previous, a reference. Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed, nutured, evolves, matures and blossoms.

From this very broad thought about all and everything, I'd like to come back to a hobby of mine : drawing. Although it applies to many artistic domains and other domains as well, however the world of artists who draw is one I am most familiar with. Beyond the harmless hobby of drawing alone in your room on a piece of paper exists a whole community, a whole dynamic, a whirlwind blowing accross the internet everyday. Tons of drawings posted, reposted, tagged, liked, reblogged, stolen, sold, claimed... It's a war, a race. Who will have more likes ? More followers ? Whose progress is the most impressive ? What ideas are the most original ?
Once again, there are too many subjects to talk about but for today and based on all the previous rambling, I will stick to the latter.

One fights for what is his and I believe it is one's right to do so, especially when your life or at least your income depends on it. Art theft is the worst as well as stolen ideas and concepts, people shamelessly claiming things as their own because they could find it freely on internet. To counter that and be sure not to be associated with these wrongdoings, there is a pressure to be original, not to do something that looks too much like some other thing, to have the next bright idea and to be first so that no one can claim your idea then. It becomes a face off with other artists. And the way artists look at art can take a 180° turn. Instead of being inspired (god forbid that, that's how you end up copying), they compare, they judge, they distance themselves from other work and other fellow artists in quest of being unique, being original, being creative, being a self made artist with self made ideas that they pull out of thin air, out of talent, out of god's will.

I don't believe that originality and creativity is pulling something out of thin air no one has ever seen before. 

We live in a world full of inspirations and every idea has its roots in it. Finding inpiration in something does not mean being less creative. On the contrary I believe that ideas as well as art and other skills and talents can only evolve and move forward on the basis of everything that exists and existed before, it makes it richer, stonger and less redundant. Using references when drawing is not like using a crutch or make you less skilled, just as reading the law wouldn't make a lawyer less legitimate for not figuring it out by himself. Do not be afraid to learn from others, to walk along side them than to remain exiled and uninfluenced. Creativity is something powerful that reaches so far and wide that it does go beyond what everyone else already knows about, but it is born from you and your experience of life and the world around you. It's not a lighbulb that randomly lights up above your head, and it's definately not something you just pull out of your arse.