The Art of Being Lucky
Find new creative pathways with the power of serendipity
Can creativity be planned?
If “art is chaos taking shape” — as Picasso once put it — then how much can we expect to plot, orchestrate or choreograph the outcome?
All creative people will know how inspiration can strike at the most unexpected moments, sometimes with eye-popping clarity, other times with a distant whisper. Paradoxically, to create intentionally — to deliberately work towards a final result from a conceived design — can often lead to a sterile outcome.
Speaking personally, one of the best tools I ever learned to use was patience. I firmly believe that if you wait long enough, the answer you’re looking for will come. As the sculptor Auguste Rodin once sagely said, “Patience is also a form of action.”
Perhaps a middle-way between these two extremes can be found in serendipity.
That is: fostering chance to offer suggestions. You might say it is a belief in the generosity of randomness. If you are open to its diversions, serendipity can be a source of fresh and sprightly thinking.
Accidental art
There was an American artist named William Anastasi (1933–2023) who liked to make drawings whilst walking around or riding…
