I’ve written before of my appreciation for Adam Savage, YouTube personality and former Mythbuster. He loves to make things, and one of his (many) catchphrases is “Stay Obsessed!” which he inscribed in my copy of his book when I recently met him. For Adam, obsession is a way of life, and it means to inculcate yourself into every aspect of something you enjoy.
obsession, n. an idea or thought that continually preoccupies a person’s mind
When an idea takes hold of Adam, it is usually something that he wants to make. He most often crafts replicas of movie props (he made his living for a while making real ones), or really any esoteric thing that grabs his fancy. One of his current projects is replicating the St. Edward’s Crown. Adam saw a truly absurd object and thought “I must have one!” and set about making his own. Currently he is working on a 3D printed version. (A difference between Adam and I is that I would see that absurd object and wonder why anyone, British royalty notwithstanding, would want one.)
I am obsessed with Star Wars. I am also obsessed with J.R.R. Tolkien’s universe; with Star Trek; and with other worlds and flights of fancy. In the making vein, I am obsessed with photography. To support my photography habit, I am obsessed with action figures. I love to make dioramas for them to be posed upon, and to be photographed creatively therein. I enjoy the making of the dioramas, the painting and weathering, of seeing something emerge from simple materials into something that looks real at scale. I also quite enjoy Lego. In fact, my toy photography habit started with what I called the Lego Portraits, simple photos of my minifigures. I got more elaborate at the setups, taking them into the “real” world, or building large Lego dioramas to photograph.
Many things have happened in life that has tempered my creative output: depression, work, obligations, and unfortunate circumstances have all conspired to curtail what I put out into the world. My current living arrangement is one of the most recent. I am constrained in my diorama making ability by not being able to set up a workshop, either for action figures or for Lego. I quite simply do not have the space. But I remain obsessed by the idea. I can’t help it. It has preoccupied my mind.
I bought a new camera, new action figures (though no new Lego – yet!), and continue to dream. Adam takes each new build, no matter what stage of completion it is in, home to wonder at it, consider it, and to deepen his obsession. Often by viewing it intently, some new avenue of creation or idea of how to proceed occurs to him and he is off to his shop to continue making. I have the three new action figures I purchased on my dresser where I can see them frequently and I continually wonder how I might photograph them.
I am trying to live up to Adam’s exhortation. “Stay obsessed!” he says to me, challenging me to not give up, to not surrender to what surrounds and what threatens to derail my creative process.
Even now, I am considering ideas of how I might continue to create, constrained as I am. Part of the trouble is that I don’t know how long this set of constraints might last, but really, there is always something in the way, if I’m honest. That depression, for example, which I’ve also written much about, never quite seems to go away.
At the end of the day, these are all so much the smoke of excuses. Adam didn’t always have the nice workshop he has today. He variously created in an apartment he shared (he admits he was a terrible roommate!), a warehouse, a college dorm room, a basement, a borrowed shop, and other places. What matters is that he never allowed himself to be defined by what he couldn’t do. Another mentor of mine, once upon a long ago, had a saying, “Restrictions breed creativity.”
I’m certainly restricted now, in physical making space, in time, in materials, in other things, but I can still create. I can still allow my obsession to fuel me, to spark, and to ignite that which I love: making things. Making will look different but that is ok. Even if it remained the same, I am afraid it would stagnate like a ditchwater pond on a hot day. Change and constraints work together to keep things new and fresh, thrust forward by obsession.
The question then becomes: what will I create? Us creative types are always being asked where our ideas come from, as if we have a compendium of genius that we keep, able to draw from at any time. If so, I haven’t got a key to that particular Pandora’s box. Adam Savage seems to have an unending supply of fanciful ideas from which to make each new thing, but he has also intimated that sometimes he simply gets struck by something that turns into his next obsession. Even he doesn’t always know what to do next. Another of Adam’s sayings is to “follow the process, not the plan” which means more to go with the flow than to rigidly work through a blueprint.
Camera. Action figure. Setting…setting…hmm. Almost there. I need to stay obsessed with the idea of a toy photograph, and see where the process takes me. I’ll just stretch out here, turn on some tunes, and get to work letting inspiration strike.
Stay obsessed.
a simple man 