Creativity is Subtraction

It’s often what an artist chooses to leave out that makes the art interesting. What isn’t shown vs. what is.

In this age of information overload and abundance, those who get ahead will be the folks who figure out what to leave out, so they can concentrate on what’s important to them.

I’ve been reading an interesting article titled “How to steal like an artist”, by Austin Kleon. It’s been a great little eye opener to the simplest points in the world of art. Even though it’s related to art, you can relate it to all things creative, and even just regular ol’ life. One of the points listed that really took my attention was ‘creativity is subtraction’.

Lately I’ve been so focused on filling my life up with things to fill in the blanks, that I wasn’t even looking at the blank white space. This is the crucial space that I as a designer, would purposefully leave empty to create harmony and complete the design. So now I realise that I need to work the white space in my life. I need to figure out what to leave out to concentrate on the more important things, embrace my limitations and just move on. I need to focus on the few things that I do want, and just IGNORE the rest. Yes, ignore the rest. White space is the pure space, the breathing space and the space that balances the rest of the elements.