Creative Environments, Conditions, and Settings

Creative Environments, Conditions, and Settings. David M Harrington, University of California, Santa Cruz. In Encyclopedia of Creativity 3rd ed. Prinzter, Runco eds. Elsevier 2020.

[Excerpts]

Introduction

Creative Environments

Creative environments help people function more creatively than they would in less creative environments. Because other entries in this Encyclopedia describe environmental factors which influence the creative functioning of people working within organizations and groups, this article will focus on environmental factors which often facilitate the efforts of autonomously creative people such as writers, visual artists, designers, and garage or basement inventors, who carry out much of their relatively solitary creative work without the support, supervision, or resources which organizations typically provide. [...]

Working Assumptions

This article is organized around the assumption that creative activities and projects present a variety of challenges to people who attempt to carry them out and to the environments in which they attempt to do so. It is also assumed and implicitly predicted that environments which help people meet such challenges will tend to support higher levels of creativity than environments which do not. For example, because some (but not all) people require periods of uninterrupted focus while engaged in certain phases of their creative activities, environments which make it easier to maintain sustained focus during those phases would be expected to support higher levels of creativity than environments which do not.

As this hypothetical example suggests, however, creative agents are not uniformly sensitive to or affected by any given project entailed challenge such as the need for sustained periods of uninterrupted focus. [...]

Creative Episodes: Common Elements, Features, and Associated Challenges

This section was constructed by (1) compiling a list of widely-cited and presumably relatively common features of creative activities, (2) drawing inferences about the challenges those features present to people engaged in them and to the environments in which they work, and (3) drawing inferences about the functional characteristics of environments that would tend to help autonomous creators meet those challenges.

Motivation. People are motivated to initiate and carry out creative activities by a variety of anticipated and experienced pleasures and satisfactions. Some of these pleasures and satisfactions flow directly from the activities themselves, and others are contingent upon anticipated and actual reactions of the outside world to the created products. The first category would include, for example, the pleasures people often derive from using their own imaginations, from physically manipulating their projects’ materials, or from creating some new in the world. The second category would involve matters such as the recognition and praise the creative agents receive from their peers, as well as evidence that their work products have informed, given pleasure to, or in some way benefitted those who come in contact with them. Most professionally creative adults who are financially responsible for themselves and others are also motivated by the hope that their creative work will enhance their financial well-being.

The nature of these motivations poses three challenges to the environments in which autonomous creators work. (1) Creative environments should contain or make possible the creation of workplaces in which process pleasures can be fully experienced. (2) They should contain relevant “audiences” who are able to derive or create value from the agent’s products and are capable of rewarding those who produce them with praise, recognition, monetary support, and opportunities for future work. (3) They should also contain people, social systems, and infrastructure (e.g. agents, editors, publishers, bookstores, and galleries) that help bring new products to the attention of such audiences. Environments which serve these functions well should support higher levels of creative activity than environments that do not.

Creative Seeds. Creative activity is sometimes triggered when creatively-inclined people come in contact with creative seeds. Seeds sometimes take the form of invitations, competitions, or commissions relevant to a creatively-inclined person’s creative interests. In other cases, creators decide to undertake projects which are available in the social or artistic-intellectual milieu as tasks and which are considered to be interesting and important tasks. Examples include writing the “Great American Novel,” writing an essay explaining in convincing detail how consciousness arises from activities of the brain, or producing a piece of art that captures the essence of the times.

More commonly, however, independent creators construct their own projects from what may be thought of as creative “seeds” which re-ignite and are assimilated to their ongoing creative interests. Seeds may come in the form of new ideas, images, sounds, objects, materials, processes, tools, and ways of thinking which are encountered in the outside world. The impact of Picasso’s contact with African art and masks nicely illustrates this phenomenon.

As a more prosaic example, a snippet of conversation overheard on a busy sidewalk or in a check-out line might become the seed for a new song, detective novel, piece of art, or nothing at all, depending upon whether it was overheard by a singer-songwriter, a writer of detective novels, a visual artist, or by someone who is not at all creatively-inclined. Creatively-inclined people also sometimes experience seeds emerging in the form of dream fragments or compelling feelings, ideas, or feelings which suddenly manifest themselves in consciousness. In other instances, creative seeds emerge from explorations and playful manipulations of the materials with which people are working.

The importance of seeds presents creatively inclined people with three challenge: (1) to place themselves in informationally and sensorially rich situations where they are apt to encounter new seeds; (2) to place themselves in or create settings in which internal seeds are apt to arise; (3) to place themselves in or create settings in which they are able to engage in the goal-free explorations and playful manipulations of the materials from which seeds often arise.

The corresponding challenges for environments are (1) to contain a rich panoply of seeds and (2) to contain settings or situations conducive the emergence of “internal” seeds, and (3) to provide settings in which goal-free explorations and playful manipulations of their materials are possible and permitted.

Spaces and Places. The creative activities being considered in this article must take place in 3-dimensional spaces. In some cases these spaces may involve little more than a place to sit and write, although in other cases these spaces may involve larger and more complex spaces in which special materials and equipment can be stored and used. The challenge to creative environments is to contain such spaces and to make them available or to make it possible for people to construct them. The challenge to autonomous creators is to locate or construct them.

Some people and some creative activities (e.g., plein-air artists, certain writers) require or prefer outdoor spaces in which to work.  Such spaces are often relatively quiet and solitary, frequently contain visually interesting vistas, are often located in appealing natural settings, and typically permit sustained and un-interrupted absorption in the task at hand.

Time. Creators typically would like to spend as much time as necessary on their projects and often wish to exercise considerable control over how their work time is configured. For example, some creators can or must work effectively in many short blocks of time whereas others need long periods of time. Some creators also have very strong preferences regarding the time of day, week, or even year and, in which to work. Some creatively-engaged people want to be able to plunge quickly into their creative work in response to suddenly emerging ideas or to a strong sense that they are really ready to work.  The challenge to these people is to find or “make” such time for their work and to find ways to control the configurations and availability of that time.

The corresponding challenge to creative environments is to help people find or make adequate work time and give them the freedom to configure and access that time as needed.

Reliance Upon Easily-Disrupted Concentration

I find it is very important to work intensively for long hours when I am beginning to see solutions to a problem. At such times atavistic competencies seem to come welling up. You are handling so many variables at a barely conscious level that you can’t afford to be interrupted. If you are, it may take a year to cover the same ground you could cover otherwise in sixty hours.

                  —Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera, quoted in Bello (1959), p. 158.

As illustrated by Edwin Land’s comment above, and as echoed by many others, some creators need protracted and uninterrupted periods of time during which they can become totally absorbed in their work without fear of being disrupted. The challenge to people who have such needs is to create or locate time and space in which such uninterrupted absorption and concentration is possible. The corresponding challenge to creative environments is to provide the space and time necessary for such periods of uninterrupted concentration.

Reliance Upon Experimentation, Exploration, and Partially-Guided Trial and Error

People in many fields often find themselves relying upon experimentation and partially-guided trial-and-error during certain phases of their creative activities. Although some creators enjoy these processes, others are made anxious or embarrassed by their uncertain effectiveness. As a result, some creatively-engaged people are very resistant to having people looking over their shoulders as they work.  The challenge for creative people is to understand and manage such feelings and fears sufficiently that they do not disrupt their work. The corresponding challenge for creative environments is to help creators understand and manage such feelings and help protect them from unwanted observation.

Reliance upon non-conscious cognitive processes. Creators sometimes experience their work as being dependent upon the functioning of cognitive processes which are largely beyond their conscious awareness or control and which may or may not produce useful ideas. In some instances the products of these non-conscious processes appear unexpectedly in consciousness while people are engaged in relatively mindless and often relaxing everyday actions such as taking showers, napping, or falling asleep.

Creatively active people have sometimes found leisurely strolls, especially those taken after lengthy or intense periods of creative work, useful in this regard. In other cases, people have attempted to consciously access these rather elusive processes by establishing what they consider to be particularly helpful external conditions which are often characterized by lack of distractions and a sense of peace and quiet. Reliance upon these marginally-controllable and unpredictably effective processes can also stir feelings of anxiety and self-doubt similar to those elicited by reliance upon experimentation and guided trial and error.

The challenge to creative people is to arrange external and internal conditions which facilitate conscious contact with the products of these non-conscious processes and to understand and manage the anxieties sometimes associated with reliance upon them.  The corresponding challenge to those who manage creative environments is to help make such times and places available and to help people understand and manage the feelings of anxiety and self-doubt sometimes associated with dependence upon these processes.

Physical materials and tools. Many forms of creative activity require the use of certain physical materials, tools, and instruments such as specialized paints and brushes, appropriate clay and glazes, potters wheels, and kilns. The challenge to creative environments is to contain and provide access to such materials and tools and the challenge to creative people is to gain access to them.

Assistants. Creative activities initially undertaken as one-person projects sometimes require more knowledge and specialized skills than one person can provide. The resulting challenge to the creative agents is to accept their need for assistants and to locate and recruit them. The corresponding challenge to creative environments is to help people identify and accept their need for assistance, to contain and provide easy access to relevant assistants.

Solitary activity. Many autonomous creators work in settings in which they have little or no contact with other people for several hours at a time. Although this solitariness suits some people very well, and may in fact be one reason they have gravitated to these activities, the solitariness may be problematic for more extraverted people. The challenge to creative environments is to provide opportunities for solitary creators to engage in social interactions as desired.

Tentative completion. Creative projects must eventually be brought to initial completions despite the imperfections and undeveloped possibilities that are often disturbingly evident to those who created them. The challenge to creative people is to complete their projects despite uncertainties as to whether they are good enough to submit to the wider world. The corresponding challenge to creative environments is to contain peers or experts who can help creators make good decisions about when to consider a project finished.

Projection into and reception by the outside world. If creative products are to provide those who create them with the sociallycontingent benefits they need and desire and if the products are to benefit people for whom they were created (their intended audiences) they must be projected into the outside world and made visible to audiences that are capable of recognizing, rewarding, and responding to them in motivationally satisfying and practically valuable ways. The challenge to autonomous creators is to find ways by which their finished projects can be brought to the attention of such audiences. The challenge to extended creative environments is to: (1) contain audiences which are able to derive or create value from those new products and are able and willing to direct psychological, social, and monetary resources back to the original creative agents and to those who helped bring the products to the attention of the relevant audiences, and (2) contain intermediaries (e.g., agents, publishers, gallery owners) and social systems that help bring new products to the attention of such audiences, and (3) contain social mechanisms by which appreciative audience members are able to directly or indirectly reward those who created the valued products and to those who brought the products to their attention.

The challenge to creators is to be flexible and extremely persistent in trying to push their work into the world. It is worth noting that J. K. Rowling’s efforts to solicit interest in her initial Harry Potter drafts were rejected by 12 publishers before finding one that was receptive. Books and online columns directed to artists, especially young artists, consistently recommend persistence in the face of rejections by juried shows, galleries, and other gatekeepers that are preventing their work from being seen.

Characteristics of Sought-Out and Constructed Environments

The actions taken by autonomously creative people to seek out and construct creative environments for themselves constitute another interesting source of information regarding the nature of creative environments. Descriptions of those actions and the nature of the sought-out and constructed environment have been reported by autonomously creative people themselves as well as by journalists, biographers, sociologists, and historians. The following topics are frequently mentioned in these descriptions:

1. Designated and protected workspaces.

2. Socially permeable and familiar workspaces.

3. Writers and artists groups, clubs, collectives and cooperatives.

4. Artists and writers colonies and retreats

5. Creative cities and neighborhoods.

6. Supportive spouses, partners, and friends.

Designated and protected workspaces. Many autonomously creative people involved in relatively solitary activity construct or seek out primary places of work which may be described as “designated and protected” workspaces. These spaces take many forms, including that of tables, desks, offices, backyard studios, garages, basements, lofts, work-live spaces, barns, re-purposed warehouses, and secluded cabins. These spaces are “designated” in the sense that they are intended to be used primarily or exclusively as the person’s central place of creative work. They are “protected” in the sense that those who use them often make clear to other people that the spaces are not to be intruded upon, re-arranged, or “cleaned up” without permission. The “protected” quality of these spaces certainly calls to mind Virginia Woolf’s famous suggestion to aspiring young women writers that they should manage to obtain rooms of their own “with a lock on the door” (Wolf, 1929).

Some creators also try to make these work-spaces quickly accessible by establishing them within or very near the structures in which they live, though others find it easier to maintain the designated and protected quality of these workspaces if they work elsewhere.  Ideally these spaces can be equipped and arranged to suit the user’s work style and preferences for such matters as décor, lighting, and the presence or absence of background music. Such workspaces serve many functions in the process of supporting their users’ creative activities.

Help sustain uninterrupted work. For many creators, the most valuable aspect of such spaces is the fact that they provide the physical and psychological space needed to engage in the uninterrupted and undistracted periods of absorbed, concentrated, and sometimes meditative thought which are so often crucial to their creative work.

Encourage and support self-imposed work schedules. The existence of designated and easily accessible workspaces also appears to encourage some creators to begin their work on self-imposed schedules, a function which organizations often provide people working within them but which autonomous creative agents must provide themselves.

Preserve work-in-progress. By permitting people to leave work-in-progress (e.g., unfinished canvases, pages ending in mid-sentence, partially completed gadgets, etc.) safely undisturbed between periods of work, these work-spaces reduce set-up time, but more importantly, help people quickly re-enter their previous frames of mind and easily pick up threads of thought which were laid to rest at the end of their last period of work.

Safe space for small “failures”. Such settings also function as psychologically “safe” spaces in which it is possible to engage in the frequently unsuccessful experiments, explorations, and partially-guided trials-and-errors so often characteristic of creative work without fear of having others witness these many small “failures”.

Motivational support. Such workspaces sometimes provide modest motivational support and encouragement in at least three ways. Because they can be arranged to meet the creative worker’s individual tastes, they can enhance the pleasure experienced while working within them. In addition, if such spaces are used almost exclusively for creative work, the simple act of entering them may sometimes trigger the kind of focused creative work that has come to be associated with that space. Furthermore, if these spaces have been the site of previously successful work, they may reduce project-related anxieties by eliciting memories of those earlier successes.  Accessible materials and tools. Such work-spaces facilitate creative work by making the necessary materials and tools and often specialized information easily accessible.

Exceptions; It should be noted, that some very fortunate and flexible writers have reported that they can work anywhere they can physically write and therefor need no special places in which to do their work. 

Socially permeable and familiar workspaces. Designated and protected work settings do not meet the needs of people whose circumstances prevent their using them such as parents who must work within sight and sound of people who they caretaker. J. K.  Rowling, for instance, famously wrote parts of her first Harry Potter novels sitting in a neighborhood cafe with her infant resting in a nearby stroller, and a coffee machine moments away.

Familiar coffee shops, cafes, restaurants, and local libraries. Designated and protected workspaces also don’t meet the social needs of people who find them too isolating. As a result autonomously creative writers who need to work in more social settings often turn to familiar and accommodating coffee shops, cafes, restaurants, and local libraries as places to work near other people. For decades, autonomously creative people in Europe and the United States have used cafés, bars, and restaurants as places to work as well as places to meet and mingle with one another, typically at the end of their frequently solitary workdays. The café life of Vienna and Paris, for example, has often been cited as an important factor in sustaining the creative ferment of these two cities. Historians and sociologists of art and literature have also cited the roles played by particular bars in the emergence and development of bebop jazz in Harlem in the 1940s, the New York School of artists and poets in the 1940s and 1950s, and the development of the beat poets in San Francisco’s North Beach in the 1950s. In such settings creative people are able to satisfy some of their needs for social contact. Here, too, they are able to participate in conversations and creative interactions with other creatively-active and intellectually-lively people who expose them to new and, perhaps, the very newest, ideas, perspectives and methods in their field of work. Valuable information about possible venues and outlets for their work and about intermediaries who might help project their work into the larger world is also sometimes exchanged and in these conversations. Within such gathering places, autonomously creative people also sometimes experience implicit affirmations regarding the importance and ultimate value of the kind of work in which they are engaged as well as more personally-directed expressions of encouragement and advice.

Co-working spaces and writers rooms. Recent years have seen the emergence of increasing numbers of co-working spaces which serve some of the physical and social needs of autonomously creative people. These co-working spaces, (or “writers rooms” in the case of those exclusively serving writers) typically offer private and semi-protected workspaces as well as communal spaces that can be used to socialize and exchange information relevant to their work. Some co-working spaces include communal spaces that have been specifically designed or configured to facilitate potentially synergistic exchanges of information and possible collaborations between creatively-active people working in different fields.

Informal groups and clubs. Autonomously creative people also seek creative support and stimulation by creating or joining local writing or artists groups in which they can share work-in-progress, explore thoughts regarding possible future projects, and receive constructive critiques in supportive environments.

Collectives and cooperatives. Autonomously creative artists sometimes attempt to facilitate their own work by affiliating with artists’ collectives and co-operatives. In such settings artists are able to share space, materials, equipment, ideas, perspectives, and experience what they often describe as “good energy”.

Artists and writers colonies. Every year, thousands of autonomous artists and writers apply to attend one of the hundreds of artists and writers colonies located in the United States. The qualities of some of the most prestigious of these colonies such as Yaddo in New York and MacDowell in New Hampshire, reveal much about the kind of working environments which many, though not all, independent writers and artists desire. In both of these colonies artists enjoy 24-h access to designated and protected work-spaces in the form of appropriately-equipped studios. Lunches are typically delivered to the individual cabins or studios in ways designed not to interrupt work. Relieved of almost all non-work-related responsibilities and distractions and provided with designated, protected, and well-equipped workspaces, residents are able to focus essentially all of their energy and attention upon their creative work. Communal dinners and gatherings in the evenings provide opportunities for residents to socialize, exchange ideas, and share work in progress. Though such colonies do not fit the needs of all autonomously creative people, due in large part to the separation from family they require, and though access to such colonies is sharply limited, the appeal they hold for many autonomously creative people is instructive.

Creatively-active cities and neighborhoods. In seeking creative environments in which to live and work, autonomously creative artists and writers are sometimes drawn to cities and neighborhoods that are heavily and often unusually densely populated with people involved in creative activities similar to their own. As mentioned earlier, Paris, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are famous examples of such cities, although they are certainly not alone in this respect. The following reasons explain why certain cities function as magnets for creatively ambitious people as well as serving as incubators and sustainers of their creative work.

Populous, culturally diverse, and historically and contemporaneously supportive of the arts. Such cities typically contain:

• large numbers of other creators with whom ideas and enthusiasms can be shared,

• affordable spaces in which to live and work

• rich supplies of necessary and sometimes specialized materials

• potential assistants who have specialized skills

• patrons, benefactors, and sponsors who are interested in supporting autonomous creators.

• diverse and sophisticated audiences eager for new creative products.

• sophisticated intermediaries such as critics, talent scouts, and agents who are interested in identifying producers of new and creative work and connecting them and their work with relevant audiences

• numerous outlets and venues such as galleries, bookstores, exhibition halls, and public readings by which new creative work can be displayed to relevant audiences and potential patrons;

Informationally-and-sensorially rich cross-roads. These unusually creative cities also tend to be cross-roads through which people from many countries, cultures, and traditions frequently pass and destinations and to which they sometimes come to live and work. In so doing such people bring steady streams of creativity-relevant information and creative seeds in the form of new ideas, values, knowledge, images, colors, sounds, tastes, tools, and ways of thinking and doing things.

Attractors of creatively talented and ambitious people. Because of their creativogenic qualities, these cities tend to continue attracting creatively-talented and ambitious people from across continents and oceans, thus swelling the numbers of creatively-inclined people living and working in relatively close proximity to one another. Such increased numbers and densities tend to increase the likelihood that creative neighborhoods emerge, that planned and unplanned interactions among creatively-active people occur, and that ideas, enthusiasms, materials, work-spaces, and gathering places might be shared. As a result of these processes, of course, such cities tend to foster ever higher levels of creativity and become even more attractive to creatively ambitious people who might gravitate toward them. At certain points, however, such cities may become so saturated with people engaging in certain types of creativity that their capacity to support and attract new creators in certain fields wanes.

Creative cities not for all and not necessary. Autonomously creative people certainly do not need to live and work in creative cities to do their creative work. In the first place, many people simply do not like cities as places to live or are prohibited by practical considerations from doing so. In addition, many creative people do not wish to lose their sense of place, comfort, and belonging by moving to a city. Others do not want to be distracted from their work by the many seductive possibilities that cities offer, to become overly influenced by the highly visible and much-talked-about creative work of other people, or to experience themselves as little fish in big ponds.

Autonomously creative people have also begun reporting that new modes of communication and new ways of displaying and advertising their work made possible by the latest technologies are diminishing some of the creative advantages previously afforded by physical proximity to creative colleagues, potential patrons, audiences, and intermediaries. Many autonomously creative people are able to find and establish good working environments and creatively supportive local environments in smaller cities and towns.  For example, writers groups and artists co-operatives can be established almost anywhere that a few similarly-intentioned writers and artists reside.

It should also be noted that many creative people who are attracted by some of the benefits of unusually creative cities but deterred by others, resolve their dilemmas by locating themselves outside of but within easy reach of such cities.  Supportive spouses, partners, and friends. In any location, supportive spouses, partners, and friends often play important roles in the lives and work of autonomously creative people For example, autonomously creative people often acknowledge the important role played by people with whom they live in helping to establish and protect their workplaces. Spouses and partners are also often thanked for tolerating work patterns that sometimes deviate substantially from the social norm, by occasionally freeing up work time by relieving the creatively active person of some household obligations, and by tolerating problematic behaviors and mental states sometimes associated with intense involvement in creative activity. Spouses, partners and friends are also frequently identified as influential sources of personal encouragement and as people who affirm the fundamental value and importance of the kind of creative work being done. In some cases spouses and partners also serve as sounding-boards, first audiences, helpful critics, and friendly editors.

Caveats

Variability among good creative environments. Creatively-inclined people differ from one another in many respects. As a consequence, the environments and settings within which they will flourish creatively undoubtedly differ in ways that reflect those individual differences. As noted earlier in this chapter, for example, the conditions preferred by easily and not easily distractible people or by relatively extraverted and relatively introverted people may differ in substantial ways. Furthermore, the conditions, settings, and environments supportive of one type of creative activity, such as writing a novel, may not be most supportive of other types of creativity, such as producing a series of thematically related canvases or pieces of pottery. As a consequence, the environmental conditions most helpful to any particular creator working on any particular project may not be the most helpful to other people working on other projects. This suggests that the ideal macro-environment for creative people is probably one within which autonomously creative people have the freedom to migrate to or construct whatever particular environments best suit their individualand project-specific needs.

Many of the varied environments constructed or sought out by autonomous creators would exhibit at least some of the environmental features and functions described here. The degree to which this proposition is true for autonomous writer and artists, of course, remains to be seen, as does the degree to which the analyses presented here generalize to other types of creative activity.

Creative Environments Helpful but Not Necessary

It is extremely important to recognize and emphasize the fact that very good environments are neither necessary nor sufficient for creativity to occur. As history shows, acts of creativity can and do emerge from very difficult or even hostile conditions, and as history also shows, creative efforts undertaken in highly supportive environments often fail. [...]

References

Bello, F., 1959. The magic that make Polaroid. Fortune 59, 124–129.

Woolf, V., 1929. A Room of One’s Own. Houghton Mifflen, New York, NY.

Further Reading

Ghiselin, B. (Ed.), 1985. The Creative Process. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

Hall, P., 1998. Cities in Civilization. Pantheon, New York, NY.

Krementz, J., 1996. The Writer’s Desk. Random House, New York, NY.

MacNeal, R., 2005. Artists Communities: A Directory of Residencies that Offer Time and Space for Creativity, third ed. Allworth Press, New York, NY.

Rosenberg, B., Fliegel, N., 1965. The Vanguard Artist. Quadrangle Books, Chicago, Ill.

Relevant Websites

312 Famous Artists and Their Studios. https://www.boredpanda.com/famous-artists-and-their-muses-in-their-studios

Brief introduction and portal to hundreds of Artists colonies in the United States as of 2019. https://www.artistcommunities.org/residencies.

The perfect artist studio. What does your art studio look like? Your ideal studio would have? https://www.pinterest.com/mdfineart/artists-studios/?lp¼true.

Yaddo colony. http://yaddo.org/.

MacDowell colony. http://www.macdowellcolony.org/.

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Glossary

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