44
B+W

I

am regularly encouraged

by my other half to while

away the evenings watching

celebrities and mere mortals

trying their hand at various

contests involving cooking,

pottery, sewing or some

other form of creative

pastime. Now, I’m not going

to pretend that I don’t enjoy

these shows. Even though I

will invariably declare before

the start of episode one that

I’m not going to waste my time

with a series, I will undoubtedly

allow myself to be drawn in.

Consequently, by episode three

I will have identified the person

who should win; by episode five

I will be ranting at the on-screen

judges as they eject my favourite;

and by the time the series

concludes I will have picked up

a plethora of pointers should

I ever feel compelled to bake a

soufflé in a hand-thrown pot

while wearing a jumpsuit made

from an old set of curtains.

If this type of programming

is taken as providing at least a

small window into the nation’s

interests, then it would appear

the act of creation – in its many

guises – is something we are

driven to do. In the past (and

among other species) we can

see how the act of creating

something from a hotchpotch of

raw materials has been a practical

necessity: we can assume that

INSPIRATION

Why do we create?

What drives us to set

the alarm so we can

head out in the early

morning with a camera?

Chris Gatcum considers

some of the things that

might be behind it.

All images

© Chris Gatcum

STRAIGHT

TALKING