DON'T HATE, COLLABORATE
Are creators doing it alone? We asked 100+ Tulsa artists, “How does collaboration expand your creativity?”
SPONSORED BY
TULSA, OK
We were driving the Mobile Incubator from Kansas City, en route to downtown Tulsa where we’d meet the team from AHHA, that’s the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa. As we entered downtown Tulsa and turned the corner we saw the staff outside the building with traffic cones in hand ready for us to park the Mobile Incubator and grab the stories of Tulsa’s artists, performers, writers, makers, designers and doers.
We had one question for Tulsa: How does collaboration expand your creativity?
* We came upon this question through much collaborative conversations!
“As creators we must do something never done before, but are we doing it alone? Or are we in it together?”
We opened up the Mobile Incubator for Friday’s art walk and stayed open over the weekend to hear fascinating details of what life is like for a creator in the middle of America. Tulsa is vibrant, sensual, diverse, and compassionate. The stories that we heard all pointed to overcoming the odds, and putting one’s community ahead of self-interest.
“I can plant the seed, but if I collaborate with others they can water it, they can bring fertilizer. They can even bring festive pots for once it grows, to put it in. I think it’s important to brainstorm with people and get their ideas, because my idea might not be the be-all-end-all.”
No matter how creative we are, our ideas are limited. Not only do we not have enough agency to pull off a big idea, but we also can’t see how big our idea could truly be without other people’s insights. If you truly want to make a living as a creator, perhaps the most important thing you can create is amazing relationships.
“If you see people that are doing a thing, and you like it, and they are welcoming to you, and you can come into that space where they are, then I think that opens up something in you. So that you can be more open, and it just spreads. It’s like the greatest disease alive.”
But if collaboration is so important, then what stops us from collaborating? Deep in our brains lies a reptilian, competitive reflex. When we become afraid, this oldest part of our brain tries to take over.
“When the collaboration gets hard, a lot of things like the ownership part come from fear, and the unknown and insecurity, because you don’t know what’s going to happen, and you don’t know if there’s a seat for you at the table.”
So when we’re afraid of our ideas being stolen, or not getting credit, or not getting paid enough, then we retreat into our competitive nature. This can be helpful in a true conflict but we don’t want to cut off the creative part of our mind. When we’re at our most creative, we can sense new opportunities, and we can intuit how others can help us get further than we could alone.
Every creative project of a certain scale and impact has multiple points of talent: written, visual, performative, constructed. Likewise every business has to have certain skill sets in place: finance, marketing, HR, project management. All of the most impactful things we know and love, get to that scale through collaboration. You just have to tolerate a little bit of mess. With the right collaborators, and the right mindset, it’s more than worth it, it’s transformative.
“Collaboration, you know people think of it as this kumbaya situation. Like “Oh my god, and together we went and conquered!” It’s not like that… it’s messy.”
- Lucas Spivey, December 8, 2020
DOCU-SHORT
PODCAST
DISCUSSION
Written Quincey has this to say about our creativity, “We are very, uber protective, so much that you don’t want your baby to be affected by other stimulus. I get it, be protective, but at the same time, let your baby influence.”
Q: What stops you from collaborating? What are you afraid of?
Lucas says that, “A beef is unhealthy competition that is zero sum, you’re not trying to add value or create value, you’re trying to take value from someone else. You’re fighting over what you think is a limited resource, but you’re actually dwindling an existing resource.”
Q: Have you ever had a “beef”? What did you learn?