It was a little surreal to be back in Balmain, my old stomping ground, for the duration of the Sydney Quilt Show. How quickly I returned to the old routine of catching the 442 bus into the city; popping into Ralph’s for some deli supplies; and counting the cracks on the footpath on Darling Street. Even my car seemed to go into auto-pilot mode as I drove over to my friend’s place to deliver a thank you gift (including a 2008 Guild Calendar). Such is the power of muscle memory.
As noted by Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit: Muscle memory is one of the more valuable forms of memory…It’s the notion that after diligent practice and repetition of certain physical movements, your body will remember those move years, even decades after you cease doing them…Muscle memory has its uses in the creative process, perhaps more for acquiring skills than for developing inspiration… If there is a lesson here it’s: get busy copying. That’s not a popular notion today, not when we are all instructed to find our own way, admonished to be original and find our own voice at all costs! But it’s sound advice. Travelling the paths of greatness, even in some else’s footprints, is a vital means to acquiring skills.
Since I am now officially in the ATQS [After the Quilt Show] mode, I’m looking foward to doing some exercises from the Art Quilt Workbook: Exercises & Techniques to Ignite Your Creativity by Elin Waterston and Jane Davila and improving my creative muscle memory.
Judy says
Hi Brenda,
There must be something in the ether of cyberspace at the moment, this is a subject I have dwelt on this week after reading somone who said her work was derivative.
I ask how can it not be derivative to some degree? There is so much informatiom, books, magazines, classes, online discussion, blogs etc after a while you forget where you saw what.
I have been guilty of getting into the funk ‘oh1 I am not original enough’ and not working at all. Now I hope I will simply work on beautiful quilts, with beautiful fabric with mine and others ideas, if I copy I hope I am aware enough to acknowledge it as such or if I am original rejoice in it, but in between I will do as Tharp and yourself said exercise the ‘memory muscles’.
Thanks again Brenda.
Judy.