I’ve been thinking about inhibitions lately…especially as they relate to artists and other creatives. I’m mostly concerned with my own inhibitions and their effect on the quality of the things I create.

Many contend that limitations actually improve creativity, but limitations and inhibitions are different. A limitation might be that you have to record your entire song using only a guitar. An inhibition would be assuming that you can’t do so because you’re a terrible guitar player.

I’ve been studying art and artists of various types my entire life. Whether it’s painting, music, books or film, I believe that one thing actually dictates whether the art or artist is any good. And it’s not talent or skill, even though both of those things are also important. No, the thing that I believe makes an artist or his art successful isn’t something the artist has, but rather something she doesn’t have. That is the verything I’m writing about: inhibitions.

Of course, it’s fair to say that most of these artists probably have them. So maybe it’s the ability to ignore them.

A conservative may argue that inhibitions are important. That a truly uninhibited person is a hedonist or a Bohemian and a threat to the moral fabric of society. Perhaps. But I bet the stuff these people create is awesome.

Then again, I’m not talking about a person lacking inhibition in his or her own life. I’m talking specifically about the creation of art. Honest art, as I’ve put it so many times before. An extreme example of this would be a horror writer. This person is likely not psychotic nor condoning the type of behaviour he or she is writing about. Nevertheless, the horror wouldn’t be all that great if the writer didn’t set aside moral boundaries for the characters in the story.

As a writer, I write characters who behave differently than I do or even approve of…but I still write them. If I allow my own inhibitions to dictate the actions of these characters, they will be flat, uninteresting versions of some ideal I’ve projected onto them. They will essentially all be the same character, molded into different boring shapes.

Musicians do this with their music. Photographers with their pictures. All artists are subject to this pitfall. And I’m as guilty as the next. In fact, I’m probably more guilty of it than most.

Currently, I’m producing my first feature film. It’s an exhilerating and frightening process. Thankfully, I’ve already assembled a crack team of fellow producers to help bear the weight of it all.

The problem I’m facing is that I’m also the Writer and Director, making me the lead creative. And right now, I’m afraid that my own inhibitions are limiting the creative integrity of our project.

My hope, of course, is that I can identify and eliminate these inhibitions before they ruin the picture completely.

Mostly, I see these being related to my Christian upbringing and the cultural issues that raises. Many of my friends and family would view the insertion of profanity, drug use, or sex into a story as a sign of the complete breakdown of my morality. Also, the lack of political or religious messaging may be viewed as the watering down of my voice when projected from such a public platform.

The fact of the mater is, I just want to tell interesting stories with honest characters. I don’t have a religious or political agenda, and I don’t want to apply the same limits to my characters that I apply to myself. Yet I find myself doing that. My screenplay, which I love, by the way, is rife with my own inhibitions.

So my next rewrite, which will be done with collaborators who hopefully do not share my inhibitions, will be more raw. Less safe. And hopefully, more original and interesting as a result.

What do you think? Should an artist function inhibited? Or should we be allowed to created freely, without inhibition?

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