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Creativity Is Like A Tree
Feed the roots and the crown will shine
“May I use a simile, the simile of the tree?” — Paul Klee
The urge to be creative can sometimes seem like a mysterious force. The beginnings are not like the endings, and sometimes the best results seem too easy to reach whilst the hardest work goes into the parts we throw away.
Creativity, in other words, is worthwhile partly because it is risky.
Many have warned against over-analysing the creative instinct, for thinking too much can threaten to kill the moment. The author Ray Bradbury put it like this: “Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy.”
Still, it helps to have a model, some paradigm of creativity that — at the very least — offers reassurance that the creative act has a reliable structure.
The artist Paul Klee, in his book On Modern Art (1924), suggested the image of a tree as a way of picturing the creative process.
The roots of the tree are like the artist’s senses, taking in nutrients. “From the root the sap flows to the artist, flows through him, flows to his eyes.”
The artist is like the trunk of the tree.
