Creativity: Its a Curse

I’m frustrated by furniture. Art annoys me. Color makes me cringe. Pillows give me pause. Tables? Terrifying. Even beds bother me. Such is the curse of creativity. Nothing’s ever quite right. Not yet. 

Designers will tell you that they love these things, and I can’t speak for them, but my impulse to create, arrange, display; these come from a place of dissatisfaction with things as they are. In general, stuff just bothers me. 

It occured to me, lying restlessly in my bed at 2:30 in the morning, that I have built or rebuilt every item in my living room. All the furniture in my bedroom/office. Kitchen? Yup. But you see, I had to do it. Everything was horrible. Nothing was quite right. To my eye, things rarely pass muster.

When I was a kid I took things apart. In my teens I tried to build things. I went through a painting phase, where I did faux finishes on everything. My best friend Tom called my technique “faux-pas marble,” but he had about ten examples of it in his place. His apartment had this weird 60s plastic-wood tile accent wall, and I always wanted to paint it black. He wouldn’t let me.

As an adult, the proportions of rooms bothered me so much that I designed 2 houses and built them. The first one was good, but a few things the builder messed up always bothered me. The second was really, really good. And i contracted it, so only me to blame for any flaws. If I hadn’t sold it, I’d be redecorating it by now. Some things were starting to bother me. Change the floor, new counters, different wall color. The usual. 

In an earlier blog, I moaned endlessly about how challenging the current place was, and is, to get a handle on. And rentals have flaws. FLAWS. Sometimes I think landlords intentionally choose ugly fixtures just to bother tenants. I suspect it’s more about what’s available on the cheap, just to get the job done. Sure, the vanity looks like it was recovered from the Titanic, but a little water damage isn’t so tragic. And an inch-thick slather of silicone completely disguises the fact that either the cabinet or the wall is way off plumb. Close enough, right?

I see flaws. Always have. The stuff I build or paint or install, I know exactly what I got wrong. I’ve spent most of my life and career trying to learn the way things should be. What works mechanically. What looks good together. What power tool accomplishes what. Furniture styles, building codes, color wheels, paint sheen levels, wood species, styles of different time periods, dimmers, lamp shades, and on and on.

All this so I can lie in bed restlessly, at 2:30 am, thinking about the sofa cushions, the bathroom shelves, the bulb wattage in my ceiling fixture. All these things I made, or remade. And they all bug me. Something’s not right. Not quite. Not yet.