How to find freedom in the creative process

A few Excerpts In An Interview with co-founder Anna and Joey Yu on how to unlock inner creativity by lowering self-imposed constraints and allowing for serendipity.

.....Anna sees the interplay of creativity and control almost like “an infinite dance”. The two are a deeply philosophical matter for the Patternity co-founder whose work can be seen across book jackets, homeware, public installations not to mention a range of textiles. The relationship between creativity and control for Anna, is “part of the fundamental energies and expressions of life.” Like most big questions, she uses nature to seek answers, in this case appreciating its “spiral of expansion and contraction,” growth followed by chaotic breakdown to further understand how creativity and control interlink. “I believe we need to learn to navigate both in order to survive and thrive,” she adds.

The Patternity co-founder admits she “used to try and control things quite rigidly” but with time, and learning to lean into the philosophy of order and chaos, she’s embraced both states of being which has only aided her both personally and professionally. “The older I get the more I realise you have to allow space and flexibility – for play, serendipity and chance.” It’s impossible to control everything around us, no matter how much it is desired, and Anna is testament to the fact that by letting go, the creative process can be more enjoyable and in turn, more fulfilling. It’s important to note however that clarity and intention within the creative process is equally essential for Anna. In this way, she creates space in life for dedicated ritual, set with intention while coinciding with wide celestial cycles. In other words, she puts in place another kind of pattern for herself, one which chimes in with a personal clock and habitual regime. As Anna puts it...

“A higher pattern can give structure and order to the infinite nature of creativity”.
Anna Murray
“There is something about the feeling of being outside, sensing the smells, the texture of light, feeling the air on my skin and seeing how everything is in constant relationship and communication with everything else – a language of connection that so often lies out of view,”
Anna Murray

Similarly to Joey, Anna has always been a visual person. Her mum remembers how she would stop every two minutes on a walk to take stock of the smaller details nature had to offer; a tiny spotted insect scuttling across the soil scattered floor for example or the delicate veins sprawling into a pattern on a green leaf. She can vividly recall being “completely obsessed” with the fabric cover of her mum’s cookery book, a 60s swirling psychedelic design with flecks of fluorescent pinks, oranges, greens and yellows used to enhance the botanical flowers and leaves. She liked it so much, she even painted an interpretation of it all over her bedroom wall: “Thanks for tolerating me mum!” Anna can say now in retrospect.

Not much has changed for Anna decades later as nature is still at the core of her’s and Patternity’s design philosophy. Like Joey, time spent off screen is important, and indulges in the inherent decor of the external world, whether it’s a canopy of branches, clouds or plain sky.  Anna adds on the beauty of nature, something that is undoubtedly out of her control but brings bottomless wonder.