Dennis Cass Wants You To Be More Awesome

Obviously you need some technical skills to pull this off, but it’s the level of obsessiveness (and the amount of spirit and heart) that makes it all sing.

Writer Tanya Whiton writes:

First, thank  you so much for your fascinating and helpful article in the Jan/Feb issue of Poets & Writers. If you have a moment, I’m wondering if you might expand a bit on the notion of the conceptual ladder? (A Google search took me to a site about the Kabbalah, which was interesting, but not quite what I was after.) Is the conceptual ladder the way in which an individual’s mind moves from concept to example and back again? Or is the conceptual ladder a series of concepts, ranging in complexity, each of which might act as a starting point? Or perhaps some combination of the two?

First, glad you liked the piece. I’m currently working on getting Poets & Writers to release it on the internet so more people can read it.

Second, before I clarify the concept of the conceptual ladder I need to do two things.

1. Introduce the following backpack:

2. Redefine art (from the point of view of the person creating it):

A piece of art represents the sum of EVERY creative decision rigorously applied

One of the ways we get blocked is that we make assumptions about our work that we don’t even realize we’re making. We unconsciously decide that a flea market backpack can only pay tribute to Barack Obama OR Harry Potter OR Sonic the Hedgehog.

Once we’ve made that decision (again, often without knowing we’ve made it) we wrestle with making our backpack great. We run our hand over many pleathers in order to figure out which one is the finest pleather. We fuss over color and dimension. We pay extra attention to every stitch and seam because our backpacked tribute has to be JUST RIGHT.

The problem is that we acted too soon. We self-imposed unnecessary limits on what we considered appropriate and/or effective backpack decoration. We failed to consider that maybe, just maybe, the best flea market backpack would pay tribute to Barack Obama AND Harry Potter AND Sonic the Hedgehog in a kaleidoscopic explosion of who’s the boss of all humankind. (Don’t listen to FAIL blog, who featured this item a few weeks ago. This is a WIN.)

So you could look at the conceptual ladder as a hierarchy of ideas that moves from simple to complex, from quiet to loud, from demure to outrageous, etc.

Or you could think of the idea as occupying a rung on some kind of imaginary idea ladder. How would the idea change if it occupied a higher rung? How would it change if it occupied a lower rung?

Or you could think of your own badass self as standing on the ladder. How does your view of the idea landscape change as you climb up and down?

Or you could come up with an entirely different metaphor (knobs, dials, sliders, DNA sequences) to belabor (as I have) at your leisure.

The point is to find some kind of tool/reminder to keep your idea-generating as fluid and elastic and expansive as you can. Then, start using that fluidity, elasticity and expansiveness early and often, because once a creative decision is made (unconsciously or not) you have to live it. Forever.