In Defence of Mess



It’s a cliché that creative people are messy. It’s also constantly advised not to be so, in order to be successful. Despite all the stories of artists living in disarray, they’re treated as an exception. And they are exceptional. If you’ve seen Francis Bacon’s studio, you’ll see just how messy we’re talking. He’s painted the walls with frenzied scrawls straight from the pallet. Stacks of drawings and books scatter the floor like mad, collapsing Jenga. Buckets of unkempt paint brushes are shoved into every corner. It’s a pigsty. 

But maybe he’s touched upon something important here. Why is it that messiness is so harmonic with creativity? I would argue that out of chaos comes innovation. It takes fucking something up to see something differently. Chaos itself has patterns and a creative mind is one that’s constantly looking for them. I would argue that purposeful chaos, and comfort within it, is a great predicate for problem solving, and creativity is essentially solving the one truly human problem we’ve always been compulsively obsessed with. The problem of turning nothing into something. It’s a drive that never seems to leave us. No matter how many times we pioneer and push forward we have to keep moving with the momentum. I’m not sure where the momentum comes from, and maybe its origin isn’t important, but how we utilise it, and what we create from it, is essential. 

We love symmetry but we also love difference, which prevents stagnation and allows us to grow. We love to venture into unchartered grounds, we must satisfy the need to explore, and constantly play with curiosity. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it’s kept us alive. If anything, it’s given us purpose. 

But if you want any kind of commercial success you must be clean-cut and perfect. You must be fluent in the language of spreadsheets, while also maintaining the ability to see the world differently to everyone around you. It’s a juggling act that’s no mean feat. 

I’ve always quite enjoyed mess, and I’ve always felt guilty about it. My room has always been untidy. I like to shed my clothing at the end of the day and discard them like a snake does its skin. I’ve never categorised my books or DVDs. I can’t whisk an egg without getting at least some of it halfway across the room. When I paint, I’ll cover myself without knowing how I did it. I like comfy clothing. I never paint my nails because they’ll chip within 30 seconds. My hair is pretty much always dishevelled. I am not neat. I’m a bit of a scruff ball.

But, throughout my life there have been times when I’ve managed to been organised and productive. Believe me I love to plan a nice dinner or weekend adventure. Sometimes I’ll even get a little too obsessed with a plan and not flexible enough with the event. I like to write to-do lists, even if I don’t finish them. I like to look for budget deals and make meals from what I have in the cupboard. I like to clean out the fridge.

But perhaps there is a way of combining chaos and order to satisfy both urges within us. Perhaps it’s less about always being neat and tidy but about allowing ourselves the space to be messy, and then tidy it up afterwards. Fuck it up and then clean it up. After all, it’s much more satisfying to trash a tidy room than it is one that’s already trashed. It’s nice to apply squiggly letters to lined pages. After all, phoenixes are reborn out of ashes. 

Perhaps Francis Bacon just hadn’t got around to tidying up yet. 

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