It’s apt that the two buildings I have worked creatively out of this week, are surrounded by the sound of children playing. It’s an appropriate sound track to creative practice, the sound of play, messy, loud, unintelligable and yet distinct in its cocophony. For school children play is a moment of relief, where the urge to move, to imagine, to role play, to create, is finally allowed freedom to express itself. And, importantly, this expression is unstructured and messy and you probably wouldn’t pay to sit and watch it.

Is it the money, and the expectations that come with it, that turns creativity into work, or is it just the extension of creativity into art that requires the focus of work? And if the answer is both, in different ways and at different times, then is there a way to be at play as we work? To sustain the openness and joy of play as we create, inspite of expectations, both internal and external, or the weightiness of what we make?