POV: Natasha Maidoff, Filmmaker & Creative Coaching Tips

By Natasha Maidoff, Filmmaker & Creative Coach

Creativity is natural, I believe, to all of us.  But most of us don’t give ourselves the time to let ourselves work on the projects that nag at us.  Or return to a project that we haven’t touched for the past decade. My solution is to pick up the project I’m most passionate about, and take it to the next level.  Projects are active puzzles that haven’t been solved yet.  I’ve learned to trust that when I return to something that’s been shelved — be it one month or several years — my new perspective will make it that much better.

I often think about this process the way my father, the artist Jules Maidoff, works on his paintings as I have observed him throughout my life.  He always has about five stretchers at a time that he’s working on. He puts one aside and brings out the other, letting the first one dry and his thoughts rest on it, then turns to the next.  But to finish a body of work, he always must have a deadline – a gallery show which demands a certain amount of paintings to cover their walls. 

Deadlines work — be it a gallery, writing contest, film festival, release date or booked show in a theater.  Artificially imposed deadlines can work as well.  That’s what I do for the people that I coach, ask: “When do you think you’d like to finish your project?”  Whatever time frame they state, the follow question is: “Is that reasonable?” 

If they say, “Yes,”  then we work back from there, pace ourselves, knowing what the end goal is and proceeding with small bite-sized increments until we get there.  Deadlines might get adjusted, but the pacing works.  The accountability works.

When you have someone holding you accountable, it’s surprising how much more likely you are to complete the goals you set.

People confide to me about their self-doubt. It stops them. Self-doubt makes everyone miserable. Confiding to your therapist might help in short term, but if you have a project you are not doing because you feel too much self-hate/self-doubt, it’s going to continue to make you miserable no matter how much therapy you get, until you start the project.

After years of self-knowledge, and a relationship to my own creativity, I can say this.

Often the real reason people stop themselves from creating is because they don’t believe they’ll make any money from it.

If you wonder about the value of creating something – if there’s no market, or only a small audience – if any? Why bother if you’re not going to sell it, or become famous? 

Get to Know Natasha Maidoff – The Beyond Baroque video interview

Artist Meg Cranston, her interview with me on the podcast Artist Planet, said she believes all artforms are a means to reach people, but re-qualifies our expectations of how large that group should be. 

“I would say you have to have some audience…(but) maybe it’s 10 people,” according to Meg Cranston. 

Audiences don’t have to be large.  It could be your family or a few friends. 

The attitude that you must profit monetarily from art for it to have meaning results in blocking a lot of great ideas from being released and explored. 

Like Michelangelo feeling he was freeing his figures from the marble he carved, I believe that each artist, writer, musician, filmmaker possesses that same potential within themselves to find and release an aspect of themselves – a carving away and freeing of their own “creative DNA.”

The process in itself has value, no matter the size of the audience.

I encourage you, my clients, students, and anyone on an artistic path to overcome the self-imposed self-censorship that takes all the fun out of life, zaps your creative passion, and backfires by generating a horrible state of inertia.

Every artist has been there. 

But as soon as you pick up the paintbrush, pen, keyboard, camera, instrument and proceed, you work your way out of it.   This is your window into your own “creative DNA,” a term I’ve coined through the many years I’ve worked with students, clients, and peers.  This is your inner voice, that no one else has access to, nor can they experience unless you create the work.

Creative DNA is at the root of what I believe is “genius” inspiration.

It is where someone finds their original vision,  trusts it, and then with conviction pursues ways to make sense of it and transform it into a medium that can communicate to others. 

Questioning of the value of a creative pursuit doesn’t do any good if it’s keeping you from beginning the process.  It doesn’t allow you to make work, or make your best work, and again, the only way to get where you want to go with making work, or make work that is “valuable” is to begin.  The question of its qualitative value is not relevant.  You need to know why it’s important to you, and to start, that’s enough. 

Save your judgment for later. 

How do you manage to keep making work, keep putting yourself out there?  It’s an inner drive to express the many things you can’t communicate in words, ideas that need to be formulated by the process of writing and thinking; reflections you want to dig into and need breathing room. 

Creating is my meditation…it takes my mind away from the tasks of everyday life — cooking, cleaning, shopping, parenting — and into the wonderful ether of thought, suggestion and the imaginary.

To me, Creativity is mindfulness. 

When I am in that place I feel enlightened, connected, energized.  It’s connecting to self and process, it’s allowing ideas to flow, it’s awakening. The power and the importance of being able to communicate is so absolutely so essential to our existence and enjoyment of our time on earth.

A “room of my own” in Topanga, quote homage to Virginia Woolf

If you’re interested in working with Natasha Maidoff, and start by attending a complimentary workshop.

Contact natashamaidoff@gmail.com and she will put you on the email list for her next COMPLIMENTARY CREATIVE WORKSHOP, “Jumpstarting Your Creativity.”

ARTIST PLANET

To hear about why artists make work and how they survive, please visit Natasha Maidoff’s podcast, Artist Planet. Artist Planet is a series of conversations between artists. 

You can watch them on YouTube (below) or listen via your favorite podcast platform.

Spotify: https://bit.ly/ArtistPlanet
Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/ArtistPlanetAP
Google Podcasts: http://bit.ly/ArtistPlanetGP

Lead image is a still from Maidoff’s film “The Fullest Day of Summer.” 

Follow Natasha’s work here.

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