Fabrizio - Cultivating Creativity : Daily Rituals for Visual Inspiration

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For Granny and Pop, who have always had a garden full of brilliant inventions, perfect tomatoes and endless love.

Part I:
ritual

Part II:
intentional irrigation

Part III:
harvest

I AM NOT A REAL FARMER OR GARDENER. I can barely keep a succulent alive. The main thing Ive absorbed from carefully watching my grandparents make a garden year after year is that the process of growth is abundant.

When I was very young, my grandparents lived on a wide piece of land, great for growing vegetables and sustaining a cow or two. Even though they dont maintain the same large soil they did thirty years ago, they still pile perfect tomatoes, cucumbers and sometimes corn in my arms when I visit them. I know that the success of their garden isnt accidental. It takes year-round preparation, intuitive timing, irrigation and, most importantly, optimism.

During the fall, leaves are collected and stored in bins near the back of the yard for future mulching and spreading in the garden. The roots are dug up from the plants that have just given all summer long and the catalogs of seeds are carefully marked for ordering in the winter before spring arrives.

During the winter, I often find myself marveling at some new contraption or invention theyve created to make the land easier to care for, or a new place to hang a special tool.

By early spring, they are moving the mulch around in wheelbarrows, sorting the hoses and opening the seed packets that have come in the mail.

During the humid summer, I know not to call their house in the evening. My grandmother is usually picking the vegetables while my grandfather waters the plants or stands at the kitchen sink slicing cucumbers that will soon become pickles.

I know that there are times when they are both tired and might not feel like standing in the heat, picking bugs off of leaves or reaching for a vegetable that is too low or too high to grab with ease. But something about the process of creating things to share keeps them going, year after year.

This book is about optimism and the process of creating, with a quiet parallel to gardening. Ive learned through uncounted hours of failure that creative longevity is about what you do to prepare yourself for the ripe moment, when the potential of an idea is able to grow into something useful.

I dont offer a secret formula for a successful creative crop in these pages, just the value of experimentation and intentional reflection as you work to make your task of creating plentiful. Finding satisfaction in making is about enjoying the cycle.

***

I started creating because of a simple, ordinary table. A Fisher-Price table and two small chairs were tucked under the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree when I was a year old, left by Santa Claus. There are countless photos of my younger self frantically drawing at the now-vintage tablegripping crayons like a caveman. The flat, smooth surface of this blue plastic object gave me the space to create. The repetitive experience of sitting, applying hand to surface and working to make something appear is nothing shy of an addiction for me. Im a person who feels most alive in process, where time and action are colored with opportunity.

Although I can no longer fold my legs under the tiny gift from many years ago, the memory of long hours lingering over piles of paper is a nostalgic presence when I arrive at my desk each morning. The reason I have the opportunity to share my process is because I selfishly create an illustration five days a week on my blog, Wordless News. The challenge of retelling a headline with only pictures forces me to evaluate my haphazard approach and to find ways to actively pursue a simple routine without becoming stalethe same way my grandparents have found new ways to enjoy their gardening routine.

So I offer little rituals of time spent away from practical deadlines. The exercises dont always end up in a final project; sometimes their value is their impermanence.

This book is for anyone who has a tendency to think visually and needs to satisfy their creative soul. It is my hope that this book offers a humble path of intentional experimentation and a new way of seeing your own visual process.

This is me, circa 1987, sporting a mullet and drawing at the timeless Fisher-Price table.

IM NOT ALLOWED TO CALL MY GRANDPARENTS BEFORE 10:00 A.M . They very rarely ask for anything or have limitations on visiting, but they would prefer that a doorbell didnt ring or a grandchild didnt stop by before the breakfast table has been cleared.

They follow their retirement clock and enjoy waking slowly with no rush. They are set in their quiet morning ritual. If I had to guess, Id bet part of their ritual includes watching birds in the yard and plotting against squirrels who are eating from their pecan trees. Im sure they take a considerable amount of time watching the weather so that they can anticipate when it will be best to tend to their garden. While their teeth brushing, dressing, eating and waking routine might be consistent, the gardeners full-day ritual depends on Mother Nature. I suspect that part of the reason my grandparents ask for peace before 10:00 A.M. in the summer is so that they can make their way to the yard and do small tasks before the heat becomes unbearable.

They also have an evening ritual in the summer. Sometimes I forget their post-dinner duties and call. The phone will ring and Ill hear my grandmothers voice on the machine and worry for a second, but then I remember that theyve gone into the yard. While the cicadas sing and the frogs chirp, they work through twilight until the little solar lights come on along the path, and then they go inside to rest.

Caring for and creating their yard and garden informs their routine. They work when it feels best, when it is most efficient and when they can feel satisfied at the end of the day.

MY PASSION FOR WATCHING THE MOON sink into the first light from the sun is born from somewhere deep in my childhood. My parents routine surely shaped my natural alarm clock. My father has been a morning person for as long as I can remember. He wakes up around 5:00 A.M ., throws back a cup of tar-black coffee and descends the stairs to the basement where he lifts weights and listens to talk radio for an hour. My mother isnt a morning person anymore, but when she was a mail carrier she was sorting thousands of letters at the post office before most people had the chance to linger in bed after their alarm went off.