Let’s celebrate creativity. Is the picture of a free spirited artist living in chaos accurate?

It is Monday, New Year’s Day 2024. I am driving to one of my Prague favourite cafés listening to a new Huberman Lab podcast. Andrew is talking with Rick Rubin, the legendary music producer (a reducer as he likes to call himself). It is not the first podcast Andrew did with Rick. Only this time the podcast centres around questions gathered from the listeners to Rick. One of the questions is about chaos and being disorganised, whether it equals to being creative or artistic. Is the picture of a free spirited artist living in chaos accurate? 🙂 

Last summer I did an interview with Denisa Suchanová, a young Czech emerging artist: musician, songwriter and singer. In 2023 she released her first EP (Extended Play), a musical recording that contains five original songs that she wrote and recorded with her band. It was really exciting listening to her, especially since this was not our first talk about her creative process. We had met before in spring of the year 2019 when I was doing my small round of interviews about creativity. 

At that time Denisa was talking about her song writing process, a rather intimate process where she would be writing songs at home. I recall that then she would be coming home from work at the end of the day full of emotions, experiences and thoughts. She would sit down with her guitar, touch the strings, and new tunes would come out. She would make notes, write down rhymes. In that process new music, new songs would come to life, and it would also be a certain way to clear her mind at the end of the day. Her process was quite solitary.

At the end of our first interview in 2019 Denisa expressed a strong desire to focus more on songwriting and singing. And most of all she wished to form a band. She felt that in collaboration with other musicians her songs would come more to life and have more character, more “colour”. 

It did not take long and in autumn that year we organised a concert in a Prague bar Ba/rak alongside another friend’s band, where Denisa performed with a fresh new band that she managed to put together in the meantime. They also performed her own songs. It was an amazing evening. I loved her singing. Her musical talent did not go unnoticed. Many people would come to me that evening and ask, who is that young lady? It was clear they also loved her songs. 

After that Denisa with her new band started to work on new music, new songs and later she decided to record their first EP. They gathered the money via a local donation site. They kept meeting, working on songs, playing, and recording. Covid made it all take much longer and more difficult, like for all of us. But that did not stop them. With their hard work, perseverance, and showing up to their musical practice regularly they were making progress. It required tenacity, being organised, being able to compose music and write new songs when perhaps it was not the most ideal time or place. Of course all of them have regular jobs. Denisa’s life changed at that time as well from living single life to living with her new boyfriend. That meant going from having the freedom to devote to her music anytime she felt like, to having to make decisions and plans on how to share space and time so that she could create. 

Fortunately new challenges were there only to be overcome and Denisa kept “showing up“ together with her band. And at the start of 2023 they made it! Their first EP “Hope You’re Doing Well“ came to life on Spotify, Apple or Youtube. 

We all are creative. We can be creative in many aspects of our lives: how we dress, how we cook, how we assemble our furniture at home, what music we listen to, what paintings we put up on our walls. I remember Denisa summed this up in a very nice sentence, “Creativity is in every step we take.”  But it seems that if you are an artist you have to do a bit more than that. 

As an artist you live in a way that is continuously open to inspiration, you notice things which can inspire your artwork, things that perhaps not everybody would notice. You are open to play and experiment which allows something new and different to come to life. But also, you are organised and capable to focus on the ‘craft’. You work on “the piece“ day after day until it is complete and can be shared with the world. And then you share it with the world. There can be some chaos in the ‘play and experimentation’. But it seems that the process end to end is ideally not chaotic but rather ‘curated’ as Rick Rubin would say.

I love Denisa’s music. I love her songs. I love her voice. My son Dan, who is also a very talented musician, said about Denisa’s musical recording, ”It is as great as hearing them play live.” As I drive back from the café I switch on Spotify and listen to “Gin”, perhaps my favourite on the EP list. It feels like a very nice way to start the New Year. 

Please check the EP on Spotify, Apple or Youtube, share with your friends and family. It will help Denisa and her band continue creating and performing their beautiful music for us. 

I hope you will be doing well in 2024! 

Denisa’s EP “Hope You’re Doing Well” on

YOUTUBE

SPOTIFY 

APPLE MUSIC