Many years ago now, I was running and had an insight that became the foundation of what I call The Science of Originality. I had been painting that day. During the run, I wondered about what the act of painting gives me. Why do I paint? It came to me that painting brings me vision. That may seem obvious. But sometimes the obvious things are also profound. This was to me and got me to thinking, still on the run, about the other media that I work with. If painting brings vision, what does writing bring?

That took a little while - but not too long - for me to figure out. I was still on the run. A good time to have ideas is on such a thing as a run, where the blood is pumping hard. The brain and its neurons love that hard pumping blood.

Writing brings me essence. That makes sense, right? The best writing is writing that offers substance: essence. The best paintings are paintings that offer vision: that explosive, flashy, and dazzling energy. Paintings don’t have to literally be jazzy and flashy. I hope you know what I mean here. A good painting vibrates with life. A good book (not the good book, although we could include that) can vibrate with life. But what we want more out of a book is pure substance: essence. Just the facts, Ma’am.

Then I thought about my music. I was still running. By this time I was about to turn around on my run and head back home. I still had plenty of time to think these thoughts about creativity and art.

Music brings me flow. Actually, I knew right off that music brought flow. I knew that before I hit on writing bringing me essence. But I held off the thought. It went like this:

Painting brings essence. Wow! What does writing bring? Oh, yeah, music brings me flow. What does writing bring? Writing brings…essence! Wow! Oh, and music, it brings flow… Yeah, that’s right. Music, flow, yeah…

So I actually realized that music gave me flow before I hit on writing bringing essence. Later, though, as I contemplated my findings, I realized that the creative process moves from vision to essence to flow, and then back to vision again to repeat the process. I came to call this wonderful process that, for me, beautifully described the stages of the creative process, as VEF: vision, essence, and flow.

You begin with a vision. You give that vision substance. Thus, you move to essence. As your vision dialogs with the substance you discover, you move to flow, the communion of vision, essence, and the third piece, the relationship or union of vision and essence, which is flow.

What I think is especially neat about this story is that my entire philosophy, which I call the Science of Originality, all began with a vision about vision. I love that.

Beau Smith is a professional multi-media artist who creates human-sized copper frogs. He also paints, writes, makes music, and designs for the web. His site is at http://www.beautifulfrog.com He also produces a podcast called The Science of Originality. The podcast is available through his website.