Mind The Gap

Bridging the distance between inspiration and execution 💡

Tightrope walker Philippe Petit in 1974

I really struggled with my Christmas decorations this year.

Regarding holiday decor, I’m a non-traditionalist; I like to do something different each time, with this year’s vibe inspired by tinsel and texture. I wanted to merge the organic quality of evergreen garlands with the sparkle of metallic fringe. But for that reason - the blending of two dissimilar materials — it just wasn’t quite working. It was missing what Jack Donaghy would call “The Third Heat” - that magical third component that ties everything together. I couldn’t seem to crack it and was getting increasingly frustrated that my vision wasn’t coming to life as I’d hoped.

I was lamenting this to my friend Sara, expressing how I needed to push through to find the perfect combination, when she said, “I’ll never know how your brain works like that - I’m not a visual thinker. I don’t understand how you get from the idea in your head to the final result. I’m curious about what happens in between.”

She had just articulated THE thing that all creatives and artists have struggled with since the dawn of time: The Creative Gap. The sprawling chasm that exists between the initial idea and the final result.

The gap isn’t relegated to capital-A Artists. It’s not just there for a painter staring at a blank canvas or a writer gazing at an empty page. It exists in how we put together a gallery wall in our apartment, in figuring out the missing flavor or ingredient in a pasta sauce or in deciding which accessory will complete an outfit. It can be as monumental as reshooting a scene for a blockbuster movie or as low-stakes as a Christmas tree. The gap exists everywhere ideas do.