Comments on: What Do Your Possessions Say about Your Creative Obsessions?

By: Creative obsessions: Adam Savage and Stanley Kubrick

Creative obsessions: Adam Savage and Stanley Kubrick — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:20:47 +0000

[...] his post What Do Your Possessions Say about Your Creative Obsessions?, Mark McGuinness writes about seeing the documentary and notes Kubrick once had a photographer take [...]

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:29:16 +0000

Mario — good point about digital collections. I guess at least they can’t gather dust…

Demian — I feel your pain.

Ari – maybe you’ve found your niche!

Andy –

Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
and thin partitions do their bounds divide.
(John Dryden)

Jay — nice distinction, the same goes for MacBooks, Moleskine notebooks and black T-shirts. (Speaking as a proud owner of all three.)

Closet — I agree, reading is fatal, it’s like a timewarp for me.

Christian — would love to be a fly on the wall when Tyler and Kubrick get together.

By: christian

christian — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:57:37 +0000

To me, this concept begs to be tied into the Tyler Durden philosophy of materialism, which I see you resisted! I’ve always wondered what Slash does with all those damn guitars. I mean, c’mon now.

By: Surf’s Up: Creativity Links for January 19, 2009 « Creative Liberty

Surf’s Up: Creativity Links for January 19, 2009 « Creative Liberty — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:26:49 +0000

[...] 3. Is your art studio, writing nook or other creative workspace stuffed with stuff? When you’re working on a project, do you tend to feather your creative “nest” with photos, books, posters, photographs and other items that help fire your neurons with inspiration? If so, you’re not alone, apparently. Lateral Action blog recently posted a thought-provoking entry discussing the relationship between collecting and creative obsessions. [...]

By: Closet Solutions

Closet Solutions — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:00:36 +0000

Reading all the comments makes my chest tighten up in determined anticipation of next Saturdays activities.. I’m going to trash 1/2 of the stuff in my home office, a fresh alternative to organizing it.

Having done this before I know one secret to success – never start reading the stuff. If I start reading, I’m done for, everything grinds to a halt.

I just remembered another strategy that works for me. Never organize anything when I’m in the ‘throwing-out’ phase.
Just put good stuff in one ‘keeper pile’ and re-sort it some time next year.

By: JayCruz

JayCruz — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:00:01 +0000

I think every creative type collects something or has collected something at some point, but not every collector is a “creative” person though.

By: Andy Hayes

Andy Hayes — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:58:42 +0000

I am with the minimalist camp, cannot stand clutter but do find it fascinating to read about nutters like Mark and Kubrick who hold on to every last piece of lint.

By: Ari Herzog

Ari Herzog — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:57:06 +0000

In 2001, while driving around the country as part of my Great American Road Trip, I bought souvenir coffee mugs from every place I visited. I’ve never drank from them, and they collect to this day on a series of bookshelves. I should probably sell them, but the mugs symbolize a creative obsession from eight years ago.

Maybe there’s a market there.

By: Demian Farnworth

Demian Farnworth — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:03:01 +0000

Remarkable post. I used to collect antique prints of saints, especially the odd ones.

Then my wife pointed out how creepy that was.

By: Mario Parise

Mario Parise — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:31:03 +0000

The big question is what will collecting look like in 30 years, when we look back and realize most of our assets were digital?

Now that we’re doing everything online though, we can collect without creating clutter. Pictures, writings, scans of drawings and cocktail napkins, music, movies, even books and comic books… we can store it all forever if we want to, in a digital format. It lacks that charm of a real physical object, but it doesn’t have to be forgotten and it doesn’t have to take up space.

Will it really be creepy in 30 years from now if every performance that (say) The Kings of Leon ever did was still preserved on the web? If every object we create – from buildings to dresses – is preserved in high-definition photographs?

If obsessive collecting is the mark (or at least ‘a’ mark) of great creativity, what happens when we’re all collecting all of the time?