By Kate Lockyer
Paul Fairweather is chasing frisson in his creative endeavours.
“There’s a French word, frisson, when the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, and it’s that knife edge between excitement and fear, but it’s where ideas come,” Mr Fairweather said.
In his workshops on creativity, he talks about the concept of ‘flow’, the intersection between challenge and skill, and said that while this is a key part of the process, sometimes the best place to be is tackling a challenge just above your skill level, which is where you get new ideas.
Mr Fairweather was an architect for most of his career, co-founding the practice now known as bureau^proberts, before stepping away from architecture to pursue other ideas, including becoming a finalist in the Archibald Prize in 2001.
The hats he now wears include inventor, illustrator, potter, screen-printer, sculptor, painter, musical performer, furniture designer, standup comedian, speaker (having co-founded TEDx Brisbane with Carl Lindgren), and writer.
He said someone once aptly described him as “equal parts Zen and espresso”, and he mostly divides his time between writing, painting and speaking.
“These days I speak and run masterclasses on creative thinking and visual storytelling for corporates, and I have a podcast called The Common Creative with Chris Meredith,” Mr Fairweather said.
“What I’m trying to do is help people build their creative confidence through drawing, painting, storytelling.
“It’s the idea of taking an insight or idea, weaving with a personal story, and connecting it with an image that either supports the idea or story, or creates a metaphor.”
He said global analytics firm Gallup found that globally, only 22 per cent of people are engaged at work.
“I use that ‘engagement’ and ‘visual storytelling’ thing as a Trojan Horse to get creativity into the conversation,” Mr Fairweather laughed.
“Corporates shy away from creativity… but I see the transformations that happen in businesses when they create a safe space for people to be seen and heard, to tell their stories, and to express their ideas.
“I really do believe that creativity is what the world needs now, to think differently and solve the enormous challenges that we have.”
He is now looking for an avenue to run that workshop with young people in need, “to help them understand their story better and look at their future differently” – if you can help, contact him at paulfairweather.com.
Currently, he is in the process of writing a book, and perhaps feedback from the editor of his book draft puts it best: “Your mission is not to teach people a particular skill, but to re-ignite the fire inside them that is the creativity they have buried or lost or otherwise misplaced.”
Photography: Kate Lockyer
