The Treehouse is one of my all-time favourite books, as it seems
to sum up my whole philosophy of living a creative life. The pages of my copy
have corners turned over where important quotes may be found, and the pages are
covered in my underlinings and scribbles. I am always tempted to
buy extra copies and give them away to friends and family who are feeling lost
and need to find their creative potential.
SYNOPSIS
During a year of chaos,
right after she turned 40, the highly acclaimed feminist thinker Naomi Wolf
decided to buy a near-derelict house in the midst of a desolate meadow filled
with thorns. The property had been on sale for years; it was dark, dusty,
abandoned – like something out of a Grimm’s fairytale. And yet for some reason
it called to her.
Naomi begins to invite
friends and family to come up and visit on weekends, away from the bustling
metropolis of Manhattan, and to help restore the old house.
Whilst starting to rebuild
the little run-down cottage, she realises that this process parallels a kind of
internal reflection and repair that she herself desperately needs. She has
lived for too many years trying to fit into the many “boxes” associated with
her career, motherhood, and international success as a writer and thinker. She
has become hard, closed, and overwhelmed.
The protagonist in this
process of healing is her father Leonard, an eccentric poet and teacher of
literature. Leonard quotes Shakespeare whilst weeding the garden, and has a
collection of medieval astrolabes, just in case one day he needs to navigate by
the stars. His definition of wealth is not based on a specific figure or a set
of luxury items, but rather “the idea that you might spend your last dollar on
two ripe plums, and enjoy them so fully that the memory of how good they were
could last you forty years”.
Through the course of the
book, Leonard outlines the twelve key principles of creative wisdom which he
considers essential for truly “living” a happy, successful and meaningful life.
The overall message of this
book is clear – that everyone is an artist in some way or other, and that our
mission in life is to find out what that form of art is and to work on that art
every day. We all have a unique voice that needs to be expressed, not only for
the benefit of others, but because it is the one thing that will make us
happier and more fulfilled within ourselves. Passion is the key to everything,
and without it we are simply fooling ourselves.
CONCEPT OVERVIEW
The puzzle cube represents
the physical environment of ‘The Treehouse’ - a symbolic structure within which
the imagination is allowed to run riot.
From the outside, the cube
appears cold and hard, but as you remove each piece, an exciting inner world is
opened up. The internal focus of the cube also refers to the necessity to
occasionally do “inner work” on
ourselves - looking inside for inspiration & peace.
The puzzle pieces all
interconnect and work together to build the cube, demonstrating how each of
Leonard’s 12 lessons of creative wisdom is crucial in the context of living a
complete and meaningful life. With any one piece missing, the structure will
fall apart.
A magnetic back plate for
each piece adds another “magical” element of play and also allows the
individual blocks to be worn as brooches when inspiration or motivation is
needed.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
The design of the cube is
based on a 9 x 9 grid, where each square is 7mm across. Each block is a
different shape, meaning that there is only one way to correctly assemble the
puzzle. The blocks interlink so that the structure has more stability when
assembled.
The outside faces of the
blocks are made from 0.75mm mild steel sheet. These have been formed by scoring
and folding, then bead-blasted and blackened with sump oil. Sterling silver
rivets are also visible from the outside, referencing the DIY building that the
author does both on her cottage in the woods and on the treehouse she builds
for the kids.
The insides of the blocks
are constructed from 0.7mm sterling silver sheet, with a saw-pierced design
unique to each piece. Multiple flat pieces of sterling silver have been
soldered together to create the complex forms of each block. This sterling
silver element has been rivetted onto the mild steel outside with 1mm sterling
silver rivets at two points.
The 12 brooches were exhibited at the exhibition Mine, held at the Danks Street Depot Gallery in Sydney's thriving Waterloo design precinct from 27th November - 1st December 2012.
The following paragraphs provide more detail for the design of each block as individual pieces for the
Designer-Maker series:
LESSON 1: BE
STILL AND LISTEN
"Dante’s Inferno begins with the narrator lost: ‘In the middle of the
journey of our life I came / To myself in a dark wood where the straight / Way
was lost . . . ’ "
The Treehouse opens with the
author, Naomi, purchasing a tiny cottage on the edge of the woods, a place that
is desolate, barren, overgrown - “a wreck surrounded by peace... like something
from a Grimm’s fairy tale”. This
place represents a space for her to escape from the chaos of city life and a
high-powered career, and to reflect on where she may have gone wrong in life.
The stillness and silence allow her to hear her inner voice for the first time
in a long time.
IMAGERY: Winter
landscape, bare branches, ruins, thorns, dreamlike, darkness, stillness
LESSON 2: USE
YOUR IMAGINATION
"The little house in Boston
Corners made me feel the way I felt when we were growing up - that I had
entered a kingdom of pure imagination; that the ‘real’ world outside had rules
and limitations and laws of nature, but inside where we lived, anything at all
could happen".
The little house in the
woods, as well as the treehouse that the family builds for the kids, are both
symbols for magic - the creation of
“a kingdom of pure imagination” where anything is possible. Creativity
is favoured over practicality.
There is a sense, even among the adults, of child-like play and the
creation of “miniature worlds” that the daily concerns of real life cannot
penetrate. The house is a safe place, a “crucible of magic” and adventure, and
a return to childhood.
IMAGERY: Fairytale
kingdom/castle/fort, treehouse, magical city, royal, regal
LESSON 3: DESTROY THE BOX
"To Leonard, Dan practices
brokering but is a writer; Terry
sells ad space but is a singer.
Leonard wishes they would break the boxes that insist that what they do for a
living is who they are - the boxes that occlude, to themselves and to the
world, the artist that is central in each of them".
This chapter addresses the
restrictions we place on ourselves, for example when we confuse our “career”
with the “work” we were born to do. The humanist view is that art can change us
and save us - but only if we are willing to challenge and reject the
expectations placed on us by ourselves and other people. We need to be willing
to go back and become students again, instead of thinking that we already know
everything.
IMAGERY: Layers
of resistance, punched through, smashed, destroyed, ripped, roughened
LESSON 4: SPEAK IN YOUR OWN
VOICE
"...the amazing thing is
that, when I get it right and reach them, when they break into their own true
voices, ‘the light in them’ leaps out: they change, even physically. It is a
kind of miracle. The air around them becomes clearer, and a radiance amps up in
their eyes and faces. Speaking in their own voices, they become, if ony for a
moment, what they were put on earth to be".
Authenticity is more
important than what other people think of your work, the agendas of your
education, or the cliches of commercial success. When we speak from the heart
we become radiant and charismatic, our own unique creative light shines
through. What makes you, personally, feel strongly about the subject you are
working on? Once the imaginative drive is unleashed, it is unstoppable. Living
for your art is to burn with a “hard, gemlike flame”.
IMAGERY: Flame,
light, illumination, candles, sound waves
LESSON 5: IDENTIFY YOUR HEART’S
DESIRE
"My family had rules too,
they were just wierd ones. If you saw something your heart went out to - no
matter how broke we were, or rather, especially if we were broke - you had to buy it. It’s not that, if your heart went out to it, you could buy it; you had to. . . The insistence that we had to honor our innermost inclination –
and the phrase was always ‘If your heart goes out to it’ – sent the clear
message that is was actually naughty to disregard what Yeats calls ‘the deep
heart’s core’ ".
There is a psychological
symbolism to the objects we surround ourselves with, and these tell us of the
personal mythology we want to create for our own lives. Magic is created when
we fulfil our heart’s desire after dreaming about it for so long - “Does your
heart go out to it?” Yeats tells
us not to ignore what comes from “the deep heart’s core”.
IMAGERY: Arrows,
strong direction, pointing to the central core
LESSON 6: DO NOTHING WITHOUT
PASSION
"Western wind, when wilt
thou blow,
That the small rain down
can rain?
Christ, that my love were
in my arms
And I in my bed again!
This anonymous quatrain has
lasted for five hundred years. If you don’t feel that feeling about where you
are in your life - change your life".
This chapter asks us to
think about the people or experiences that you literally cannot live without -
if this thing was taken away, you
would say “I would die”. If you
have a shadow of a doubt that you are not in the right place, you need to
change direction towards what is most important. Look for the spark, the knots
that you feel in your heart when you are denied the thing that you are
passionate about.
IMAGERY: Sparks,
knots, scribbles, bursting out
LESSON 7: BE DISCIPLINED WITH
YOUR GIFT
"Don’t wait for inspiration,
but sit down quietly, and begin; once you have gotten to work, shut up, even to
yourself, about writer’s block; use your imagination; and keep working. That is
your draft. The first one will always be terrible; don’t worry about that; keep
working. Cut anything that in not in your own voice or anything about which you
do not feel passionately or anything that is not true. If you have taken a
wrong turn, go back; that is part of the process. The edit, edit, edit.
Finally, know when you are done.
Of all these, ‘get to work’
is the most important".
Technique and structure must
be balanced with emotion. You need to know the rules before you can break the
rules - your audience can tell
whether you have made an intentional mistake or if you have just been lazy or
careless.
Writer’s block is the enemy of
creativity, but commencing the creative act drives out fear. Don’t wait for
inspiration - just start. There is no revising a blank page - just keep going.
Work is always “in progress”, a process of trial and error. It may take many
attempts to achieve perfection - just keep trying until you get it right.
IMAGERY: Building
blocks, steps, machinery, clockwork, incremental progress, time passing
LESSON 8: PAY ATTENTION TO THE
DETAILS
"There is a story about a
monk who lived in China; he spent his lifetime carving a stone cicada. It was a
beautiful cicada. The very last thing he did was to carve a perfect ruby tongue
in its mouth. Of course, no one would ever see the ruby tongue. But the monk
would know it was there. As a monk who was praying with his work, and as an
artist, he knew that only when that unseen detail was finished would the stone
cicada be complete".
Plot is the armature and
details fill it out, providing texture and clarity. To do this, we need to
notice the extraordinary in the ordinary, every day. Sometimes you need to
“kill your little darlings” (creative ideas that you are very attached to) if
they are not working. We also need to know what details are necessary for us to
feel satisfied that the work is completed, even if it is something that no one
else will ever see or know about - such as the stone cicada’s ruby tongue.
IMAGERY: Millimetre
measurements, filigree, fretwork, repeat pattern perfectly executed
LESSON 9: YOUR ONLY WAGE WILL
BE JOY
"From my father, I got the
idea that wealth was not a specific figure or a set of luxury items. That
wealth was the ability to buy two ripe plums and enjoy them so fully that the
memory of how good they were could last you forty years".
Don’t listen to other
people’s opinions about your work - it is more important that the work is
authentic than whether it is popular or commercially successful. Creative work
should, above all, make you happy - the artist is driven by “fire in the
belly”, not how much money they will make. Don’t confuse the life of a work of art with the life of the
artist - some great art has been hidden for 300 years, but it is still great
art even though no one is looking at it. It helps to approach the work as if it
were not your own, and then step back and make the necessary changes to make it
great. Remaining true to your inner creative light is absolute, a way to
achieve spiritual transcendence.
IMAGERY: Circles,
coins, sunlight, bubbling over
LESSON 10: MISTAKES ARE PART OF
THE DRAFT
"False starts are sometimes
what lead you to the beginning of the real work, my father feels. There is such
an important place in anyone’s life for false starts, he believes, for dead
ends from which you reverse and for imperfections; human error. He believes in
accepting that there will be first and second and third drafts. If you are
stuck or going the wrong way, it’s okay. Just stop and revise….. There is no shame in
realizing you are going the wong way. The only thing to worry about is being
afraid to go anywhere".
False starts lead you to the
beginning of the real work. “An artist has to drip sometimes”. To be flawed is
to be human - don’t wait for perfection, it will stop you in your tracks. Make
use of imperfection - “the diminished thing” - and make do with what you are
given. Mistakes are everywhere - they do not equal failure, they are just part
of the draft. Mistakes are a crucial part of the process.
IMAGERY: Scratches,
crossing out, scribbles, scrunched up, mis-printed, blobs, scuffed
LESSON 11: FRAME YOUR WORK
"The Chinese artists have
something they call ‘the doctrine of the final inch’. When one of them nears
the completion of a project - with, say, only an inch to go - he stops; goes
away; meditates; prays; then comes back and approaches the final inch as if
beginning the project anew".
The doctrine of the final
inch - that you must take as much care at the end as you did at the beginning.
Death is necessary, but it frames a life - we must be ready to die, satisfied
with our achievements. The worst thing that can happen is to die feeling that
you have wasted your life. Don’t pretend that death won’t happen, we need to
think about it now so that we can put the finishing touches on our lives. You have to know when your work is
done. We are remembered by the art
we leave behind.
IMAGERY: Autumn,
cold and darkness coming, change and decay everywhere
LESSON 12: SIGN IT AND LET IT GO
“Every person has a destiny
or task, and if he or she pursues it, that is his or her light . . . I’ve
observed people making things that are so beautiful, working in the most
obscure places; children making dolls in the Sahara out of wooden spools. The
creative process is everywhere. I would like to feel at the moment of my death
that I had honored that light”.
“I really wish, ” I said,
“that you would stop talking about the moment of your own death.”
“You can wish all you want,
honey.” My father laughed. “It’s not going to change the outcome.”
Death is inevitable - it
brackets our lives and reminds us of what we must create while we are still
alive. We need to feel at the moment of our death that we have honoured our
creative light, and hence to face death with sadness perhaps, but not despair.
“You can wish all you want, but it won’t change the outcome...Honey, let it
go”. To sign the artwork is the very last thing we do before we send it out
into the world, as a representation of ourselves. A signature indicates that we
are satisfied with the end result, and that we are ready to move onto the next
stage - onwards and upwards. Freedom.
IMAGERY: Wings,
blue sky, release, freedom
