Why Messy Creativity Is the Best Kind of Creativity.
We live in a world that focuses on the ideal, the presentation, a curated vision. We look for clear directions, perfect aesthetics, and instant results. But art that’s too tidy loses something vital, the joy of discovery.
What if the best kind of creativity isn’t about control at all, but about letting go?
When you let things get messy, you stop worrying about how it will look and start paying attention to how it feels. The brush slips, the color bleeds, and suddenly something unplanned takes shape, something unexpected.
Studies show that “disorderly environments” can enhance creativity and problem-solving. But you don’t need neuroscience to tell you that a little chaos wakes the brain up. It keeps us flexible, curious, and ready to be surprised.
In a 2013 study published in Psychological Science, researchers Kathleen Vohs and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota found that messy environments actually spark creative thinking.
Participants who worked in disorderly rooms generated ideas that independent judges rated as more creative than those from tidy rooms. As the authors wrote, “Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights.”
Interestingly, the messy spaces didn’t make people produce more ideas, just better ones. The study suggests that while order encourages convention and discipline, a bit of chaos can open the mind to novelty and imagination.
Starting every creative session with a mise en place or perfect set up already tells your brain that there is a place to start from, a “right” way to do things. If you start with the chaos, you look over your half finished projects or piles of supplies. What are you most interested in picking up? What item, color, collection of things spark a moment of curiosity? Can you unravel or take apart to make something new? Can you use a tool meant for a specific purpose in a new and unique way to create something wildly different?
What happens if you just play with the material or medium first? Is there a wrong way to explore creativity?
Let yourself explore the materials first. Use all your senses, what do you notice when you look, smell, touch, feel, and more. What do you notice when you focus on the drag of paint across paper, the sound of tearing paper, the feel of clay in your hands? There’s no wrong way to explore creativity, but there are lots of ways you haven’t even tried yet. You can rearrange the colors and textures into patterns or groups and see what gives you goosebumps. You can sit with the uncomfortable feeling you get when a color combination or first pass feels immediately wrong. You can give into the curiosity of “what happens if I just try this?”Take inspiration from Australian-Nigerian Nnenna Okore “As a rule, I try not to impose greatness on an idea from the onset of a creative project, because it is in the making process that the mediums and ideas interact and connect.” (2023 Artcafe interview with R. J. Preese)
How do you find novelty when you are creating?
At a Fruits of Our Labor workshop, we often find ourselves answering “Can I?” with an enthusiastic, “Yeah, let’s fuck around and find out.” When someone asks, “What happens if I…?” we can’t help but grin and say, “Who knows? Try it! I can’t wait to see!”
We actually love when a participant comes in and claims to not be a creative person. We take that opportunity to remind them that creativity is a spectrum. You can be creative in how you dress, the playlist you make, the way you cook or bake, how you decorate your house. Our place in facilitating is to remind you the process is just as important as the end product, most of the time even more important.
That’s the energy we cultivate: a space for wonder, for trying just to see what happens. It’s about curiosity over control, process over perfection, and the joy of making simply for the sake of making. It’s a place to embrace the chaos and to get messy.
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