Most artists have heard the famous quote by Picasso, "Every act of creation is first an act of destruction." On the surface, the concept seems counterintuitive, but for anyone engaged in the creative process, regardless of genre, the saying has inherent wisdom.

Picasso was not the first to make this suggestion. In fact, the concept is archetypal, embedded in many creation stories and myths. In the Bible, God destroys the earth through floods before things are made anew. Germanic and Hindu beliefs are centered on the cyclical nature of creation and destruction. The ancient practice of alchemy focuses on breaking things down before a transformation can happen.

When we engage in the creative process, we may have many false starts or confront dead ends part of the way through, sometimes as a result of initial conditions. We are embedded in the eternal struggle of stability and change, trying to maintain the form of the idea while pushing the boundaries into something new. The process is not always clean, or pretty, and things can break down rather quickly or erode over time. For some, this period of destruction can become quite entrenched. Self-doubt, inertia, and uncertainty are all symptomatic of this decomposition.

It is here in the destruction that character comes into the equation. We can fall into the depths of our own shadow or we can reorganize what we inherently possess into something new. We can enter a 'tapas', a brooding period, a metamorphosis. Things that break down can reorganize if we create the space. It is in this sacred space that destruction can lead to creation.

Life is filled with creative containers from the minute to the large. The caterpillar is encapsulated in the chrysalis to begin a transformation, a tree in the forest can decay into rich soil only to allow another tree to grow. Through a similar process, we do not simply re-emerge from destruction, but rather we evolve. Our history is part of us, but we are changed into something new.

As artists we embrace this process through either intuition or intention. Whatever the route, we navigate through the essential tension between stability and change, the known and unknown, and creation and destruction, and we transcend.