Book Review: CREATIVITY SUCKS by Phil Hansen
“It was like the part of my identity that I'd always been able to count on-the impulse to create that had made me who I was-had turned on me. At that point, I learned something completely unexpected about a topic I thought I knew a lot about: creativity has the potential to completely suck,” these are Phil Hansen’s own words in his 2020 creative delivery.
There has never been a better description of the betrayal you feel when your creative well runs dry. Very few people understand how taxing creativity can be to the mind, but Phil managed to pour that feeling into a 208-page masterpiece.
My First Encounter with Phil Hansen
I first met Phil in 2017 at the Mississippi Whole Schools Summer Conference where he was the keynote speaker. This was a transformative experience for me because his theme of boundaries for creativity affirmed a lot of my own art teaching philosophy.
I was also really drawn to his use of unconventional materials and heavy focus on process, as these were ideas I’d been working to mainstream in my elementary art classroom and here at Party in the Art Room as well.
After that conference, I immediately set out to develop some lessons for my fifth graders using these concepts, and Phil’s videos, as the inspiration for some deeper creative work with my students. The results were remarkable.
I remember my principal even making time to come by and see what we were doing on a regular basis because the sheer feat of classroom management was something to see. First, the students spent a few class periods brainstorming and sketching out their ideas. Then, they planned out what they would need to make the idea happen. We organized giant bins of random objects and the students spent some time trying to find the materials they would need to use.
One of my favorite parts of the project was how they couldn’t always acquire what they thought they would need when we were in the planning stages of the process. That led to them shifting and redesigning their work, a very powerful learning experience. Take a look at some of the projects here.
Efforts to Incorporate What I’ve Learned into My Teaching
That first project with my fifth graders wasn’t the end of my attempts to capture this “creative inside-and-outside the box” thinking with my students. After getting to hear Phil speak live at that conference, I began following his work more closely, which led to me participating in some of his storied pieces, one of which was in the A Death I Remember series.
Fascinated with the concept of writing to create images, I began exploring ways to help students develop fact fluency in math by repetitive writing. You can read about that here (coming April 27, 2022).
As you can see, I’ve been a big fan for a while now so as soon as I heard Phil had written another book I was keen to check it out. The copy of the book I received had creative and artistic prompts and a guide for teachers included. I was really impressed with the ideas in the teacher’s guide and have used the creativity prompts with my own kids, the teachers I work with, and their students. But, let’s get back to the book review…
My Own Struggles with Creativity
Remember that lesson I mentioned earlier where I let the fifth graders develop their own piece of art from start to finish. Go back and reread that post because while I gush about how worthwhile that process was for me and my students, I also let you know it brought about some exhaustion for me.
To be clear, students need that kind of learning and I would do it again in a heartbeat. The problem is that sometimes teachers aren’t supported to teach like that. So, the teacher’s back breaks. It is not just me. I see it time and again. That’s a post for another day.
What was supposed to be an uncomplicated project ended up being a huge suck on my own creativity as I helped 150 kids refine and hone their ideas.
What Phil describes in this book hit so close to home for what I went through as a teacher trying to help other people be use their noggins creatively.
Let’s dive in deeper!
Phil’s Struggles with Being a Creative
Phil Hansen discusses the struggles of being a creative perfectly in his book Creativity Sucks: And 30 other things I’ve learned while Living a Weird, Amazing, Crazy, Creative Life. Quite a mouthful, I know. BUT it’s absolutely, definitely worth the read.
In this book, he discusses his struggle with depression at the peak of his career. He talks about the difficulties of feeling like you haven’t “made it” with nuance and candor that we can all appreciate. But the book is not all doom and gloom; Phil also shares some tips for survival in the creative space.
In chapter 3, he describes the two main beliefs of creative people as follows:
“It will be easy”
It’s common for artists in any medium to believe that everyone will run to buy their art. Most artists believe that the journey will be easy and that they’ll fill up galleries within a month of leaving art school. They assume that their studio will be the meeting point of art collectors from all over the world.
“Hard work will get me there”
These types of creatives don’t believe in having a plan B. They’re artists by right, and they believe they can achieve anything if they work hard enough.
Whichever type of artist (or art teacher) you are, this book is for you. Phil points out that making a living from creative work often stifles our creativity. You can’t control when your next brilliant idea will come, which puts a lot of pressure on you. And the pressure won’t make you any more creative. Such is the “suckiness” of creativity. It takes over you at the most inopportune times and makes itself scarce when you need it most. It’s a vicious cycle.
Phil adds that the stress of executing a project can diminish any enjoyment we feel. As creatives, our success is measured differently from other fields, and our losses are rarely acknowledged. Society sees art and other creative ventures as hobbies. And so, they put no effort in motivating a creative as they would a sports star, for example.
“From a young age, we inherently understand that it's going to take a ton of effort before we can pump our chests with pride on the playing field. But no one tells us about the grit creativity takes.”
We’re never taught how to deal with the difficulties that come with creativity, and so the “struggling artist” stereotype persists. No one tells you how much perseverance you’ll need to be a successful artist because they see creative ventures as pastime activities you’ll grow out of.
After discussing his struggles with fellow creatives, Phil realized that he wasn’t alone in his misery. Yet, no one wanted to talk about the pain that came with being an artist. They wanted to perpetuate the misconception that creative ideas flow through you like blood courses through your veins.
Despite all these struggles, art remains one of the purest forms of expression. Phil articulates this fact perfectly:
“Art drew me in through a desire to see something I've created take on a life beyond myself. I do this because it's how I share. The aspiration for creative expression isn't just for the young. You know you're meant for this life when nobody else can talk you out of it.”
If you’re looking for a sense of commiseration with a fellow artist, there’s no better book to buy than this one. This masterpiece is the creative bible for artists of all mediums and levels. This is the book you grab when you need encouragement, a guide through your artistic journey, or just a moment to share in the highs and lows of a creative mind. Phil Hansen’s book is 208 pages of brilliance!
About Phil
Phil Hansen is a self-taught multi-media artist whose TED Talk, "Embrace the Shake," has received almost 3 million views. He is the creator of Stories as Art, a project wherein he turns people stories of overcoming limitations into magnificent artworks. He shares his art through his website (philinthecircle.com) and his YouTube channel of the same name. The 43-year-old credits his high school art teacher, Mr Phelan, for encouraging his passion for creativity.
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