OCD - Obsessive Creative Disorder
by Larry Cole
“What is this strange compulsion? Are there others out there like me?” I ask myself these questions on a semi-regular basis. I am talking about this overwhelming desire to alter everything I come into contact with. This phenomenon has become brutally apparent as my wife and I are working through a remodel of our home.
We have now spent significantly more on the remodel of our home than we spent to buy our home just seven years ago. We are ripping out perfectly good toilets, countertops, light fixtures, doorknobs, etc, all in the name of personal preference. This isn’t our first journey down this slippery slope either. We have been through the exact same situation with multiple cars, home furnishings, children’s toys, motorcycles, etc. I don’t know if the problem is a “designer thing,” an “art thing,” or just a Larry Cole thing. But I do know that it is definitely a real thing.
The truth is that I can’t leave anything stock or as-is. If it can simply be purchased off-the-shelf, than that just aint gonna cut it! I have to paint, faux finish, embellish, reinforce, modify, electroplate, alter, and ultimately improve everything. Luckily, I have a very patient spouse who allows me to do my creative thing. For the most part, I even think she generally enjoys the results. In fact, maybe I have rubbed off on her because she owns and drives a 1995 GMC Suburban with an air ride suspension, smoothed exterior, 18” jet black rims, custom emblems, with a somewhat less than stock motor under the hood. Yes, that is correct, that is my dear wife’s grocery-getter.
I find myself modifying everything I touch. In my art gallery I painted all the electrical outlets, covers and light switches. I made my own floor molding out of galvanized metal, and I personally rewired all the lighting in the entire gallery. If that weren’t enough, I designed my own light boxes to backlight my front signage and had a friend of mine make the boxes based on a prototype I fabricated.
I find myself up all hours of the night researching, investigating, and designing my own creative solutions for everything. I utilized rain gutters and down spouts as wire management devices in my office. I am currently working on a medicine cabinet, which will slide directly out of the wall in my master bathroom. I used industrial hanging hooks for curtain tie-backs in my bedroom and a piece electrical industrial superstrut for a hanging rod in my wife’s new cedar closet. Long story short, I just won’t be satisfied unless I leave a wake of change behind me as I travel through life on planet earth.
Am I the only one that suffers from Obsessive Creative Disorder? I hope not. Did you have to buy a kiln because you simply could not settle for off-the-shelf dinnerware? Maybe you purchased a perfectly good vase so you could break it and glue it all back together in a less than perfect way. I surely hope that I am not alone in this insatiable desire to change the universe one can of Krylon at a time.
November 21st, 2007 at 11:40 am
Cole Funace — don’t burn us! D is building a kiln & a forge in our backyard, and we love to create with our kids using the leftover scraps, and of course I love to paint. We love to create and re-create. We are always processing & expressing life in images and forms. Imagine if more people chose this type of dynamic, thoughtful, interactive and reflective “recreation” over passive and redundant forms of entertainment… our world would be amazing! There are different ways to be creative, but we are glad we get to take part in life and effect creative change through art forms.
November 26th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
my problem is that i have this problem all the time and i have a hard time getting anything else done. either that or i just want to shut my brain off for a while. thanks for the fun read! blessings, darin
November 27th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Darin, I have the same problem. If you figure out how to make your brain “shut down” please let me know. Sometimes a dip in the hot tub or a glass of wine will work for me, but I do spend lots of nights awake because my poor brain doesn’t know how to go to bed. It seems like I am always working on a few things at once. Sometimes I get frustrated when I meet someone who can truly just shut down and chill out. It just ain’t fair!
December 4th, 2007 at 1:32 am
Larry, you got this ‘overtime-creative-brain-activity’ honest. And I might add, you have been this way since before you could write your name! This article brought back memories of the days when I put in ‘all-nighters’ at my sewing machine because it was peaceful and because….well, I could not ’shut-off’ my creative mind! I clearly recall you sitting at my feet as a toddler in the middle of the night; for the longest time you would take straight pins and push them into my pin-cushion in varied creative patterns that often left me amazed. Those are precious moments to me that hold a beautiful place in my heart. And today I continue to see that same intensity in your determination to express yourself in everything you touch. If one must have an obsession; you can consider OCD a blessing! Love, Mom
December 17th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Woo! I am RIGHT there with you! every time I shop for anything I find myself thinking “I should become a ____ designer” because I can never find what I have envisioned in my mind’s eye. I also carry around the knowledge that I could, if necessary, make anything from anything. If I didn’t have a hook to hang a coat on I’m sure, in my gut, that I could scrounge around, find some piece of something to nail to a whatchamacallit and make my own darn hook! I think, all in all, this is a good disorder to have. Resourceful and cost-effective, I say! Great article!!
February 26th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Thanks for posting this! Fortunately(?) both my wife, Anh, and I are like this — and we’re different MBTI types — but we tend to drive others, and each other, somewhat crazy. And in a work situation… always looking for the improvement, change, and so on… not a good thing in most cases. But why do anything the same way twice? Unless you have to and it makes life easier… And why not “personalize” things? Not to overspiritualize, but I do believe it’s a “God thing”. Even genetics, for example, allows for an almost infinite number of permutations on the same thing. In fact, it was something of a hard slog to create 2 exactly alike items, until the idea of modern manufacturing processes came along. Add to that modern marketing, and you have too much of the almost exact same stuff, and it’s hardly even interesting. Thanks again.