Tess Needham

In Creative Quest, musician, filmmaker, and producer Questlove outlines his philosophy of creativity, and offers tips for creatives to succeed. 

It’s also part memoir, as he backs up his advice with examples from his own life. 

Questlove has a lot to say about creativity, and I’d recommend reading the whole book. I found it inspiring and validating my own ideas about creativity. 

I pull out my favourite nuggets of Questlove’s creative wisdom to share here. 

On adaptability

• Don’t be too set in your own ways. Be suggestible from time to time.
• Try to always be inspired by something surprising—or to surprise yourself by always being inspired.
• Getting into a groove can be dangerously close to getting into a rut.
• If something makes you very uneasy, especially if it’s something that’s being done in a creative field where you have experience, pay attention.

On focus and prioritisation:

• Being creative is a mix of unfocusing your eyes in the right way, while still remaining focused on the picture.
• Creativity is not about letting everything in—it’s about refusing to keep things out.
• To truly get in touch with your creative side and the ideas it generates, you have to look through the organized and focused thoughts and find out what’s behind them.

On replicating and learning from the works of others:

• The first step in creating is often re-creating.
• I get to see how things work when other people are working. Whenever I have done that, I feel creatively rejuvenated.
• Once you are making things of your own, you’re no longer completely in anyone’s shadow.

On the audience:

• True creativity, or at least the version of it that happens during a performance, requires an artist to both insist on his own plan and recognize the needs of the crowd, and to live inside the tension between the two.

On curation:

• You can be an artist, but you also have to be a curator. You have to occupy both of these roles at the same time.
• Imagine creating an exhibition of all the things that inspire you, and imagine how you would arrange the works in the show.
• Curation can be seen as a form of assuming a  persona. You assemble a version of your creative interests, the works that inspire strong responses, and then you put that version forward. Other people come and see those works, and through them they understand something about you.

On creativity as a practice:

• Creativity is a lifelong endeavor. Practice may or may not make perfect, which is why you should never stop practicing.
• Be sure to summarize what you’re learning. Isolate your insight and turn it into a short thesis statement.

This last quote is one reason I find reflecting on the creative process in this blog so valuable. Through writing down what you’re learning, and summarising the insight into a statement in your own words, you’re building your own creative identity, brick by brick. 

So, my short thesis statement of insight from Creative Quest? Here goes:

Creativity requires a mix of flexibility and focus. This is true when going through a process of creative inspiration and ideation, performing in front of an audience, or studying and recreating the works of others.