On the Origins of Creativity | A&D

Ana Paula Rivas
Nov 4
5 min read

Updated: Nov 8

There is a void that precedes every act of creation — a dense, empty space full of potential. In that stillness, something ancient hovers, waiting for form. We call it inspiration, but perhaps it is something else — something beyond us.

I have come to believe that every space, every story, every idea carries its own essence. Creativity, then, is not merely the pursuit of beauty, but the revelation of truth. To create is to participate — to become a channel through which the invisible takes form. The artist, the designer, the maker — each translates breaths from the ether into shapes, textures, and words that align with the rhythm of eternity.

The Mystical Visitor

This relationship with the invisible begins with a specific kind of attention. My creative process always begins with seeing — not merely looking, but observing in a way that feels almost devotional. I notice the smallest things: the warmth of the sun on bare skin, the rhythm of fabric swaying in the breeze, the melodic sound of rain against the window, the geometry of a shadow across the floor.

These details speak to me. They stir something beneath the surface — a feeling that can’t be named but insists on being followed. I translate what I see into other senses and begin to play with them: the sound a line might make, the temperature of a color, the scent of memory before it returns, the texture of light across water, the taste of something unsaid. Slowly, these sensations gather into meaning.

Stories begin to form — narratives, fragments of thought that I record as raw notes before they disappear. Then comes the camera. Through the lens, I try to make tangible what I have already felt. Sometimes, the world offers the perfect light; other times, I turn to my archives — moments once lived, now reimagined.

This is how ideas find me — through the body, through the senses. Not through scrolling or searching online, but through experience and presence.

And yet, I often wonder: why this creative process? Why these images and not others? Where does this way of seeing come from? Is there an origin to the creative path — a source beyond the self?

Elizabeth Gilbert once suggested that ideas are alive — conscious entities that wander through the world in search of a willing collaborator. Perhaps that is what I experience when I create: not the invention of something new, but the manifestation of something timeless. Ideas, like guests, appear when the space is open — when we are attentive enough to notice them, and humble enough to receive. To create, then, is not to claim, but to listen. The most brilliant works are born not from control, but from consent — from the agreement to let mystery speak through us.

When we open ourselves to this dialogue, creation becomes a form of flow — the moment when the invisible chooses to become visible through our hands. To say “I had an idea” may not be entirely true. It might be more accurate to admit that “an idea found me.” Our task, then, is not to possess it, but to honor it — to recognize when it has chosen us, and to tend it with the same respect one gives to something loved and cherished.

A Dialogue with Time

My worst enemy when it comes to creativity? The notion of time.

It slips through everything — the golden hour that fades before I can capture it, the idea that visits only once, the feeling that never returns quite the same way. Time gives meaning to beauty, but it also takes it away. This tension is the core of my practice. So much of my creative process is an attempt to converse with it — to pause what is fleeting, if only for a moment.

Every photograph, every fragment of writing, feels like an attempt to hold a moment still — to extend its breath just a little longer. I am constantly reaching toward the ephemeral, trying to anchor what I know will vanish. And yet, perhaps it is precisely this vanishing that makes creation necessary.

Milan Kundera, in Immortality, spoke of this yearning — the human impulse to be remembered; to carve a name into time’s dissolving fabric. It is the longing to leave a trace. Every gesture, every crafted object, carries this subtle desire for continuation. To make beauty is to defy impermanence. Through art, we extend ourselves beyond the fragile boundaries of the body.

Is this ego? Or is it the idea itself—calling at the door, asking to be given form?

Art, then, becomes an offering to impermanence. It is how we negotiate with time; how we bridge what fades and what endures. Not to leave behind an image, but the vibration of a consciousness.

Yet Kundera reminds us: that immortality is never what we imagine. What remains is not the self, but the echo — a shadow refracted through memory, perception, time. Every artist, willing or not, shapes this paradox: the desire to endure within a world that constantly dissolves.

And perhaps this is the purpose of creation — that we make not to be remembered as we were, but to participate in something larger: the continuous unfolding of meaning itself.

In that understanding, there is freedom. We realize our task is not to last forever, but to become a brief, golden moment — through which eternity passes.

The Thread

Perhaps now I am allowed to bring together two seemingly distant languages — the soft, mystical lens of Elizabeth Gilbert and the philosophical gravity of Milan Kundera. Between Gilbert’s magic and Kundera’s weight, I have found a balance for the creative act — it is both a calling and a surrender.

We create not to be eternal, but to touch eternity.

We are neither the sole authors nor the passive mediums. We stand somewhere in between — translators of what wishes to be seen, interpreters of the invisible.

Every idea, every stroke of color or line of prose, continues a dialogue that began long before us. Creativity is not a means to preserve the self; it is a way of dissolving into the infinite — of allowing what is eternal to remember itself through form.

When we create, we weave a thread through time — one that connects our brief existence to the larger fabric of consciousness. Each gesture, each image, each note, becomes a declaration: I was here. I listened. I answered.

At Esencia Atelier, I see art and design as portals — not merely expressions of taste or mastery, but awakenings. Each object, image, or word becomes an invocation: a reminder that the invisible is always present, waiting to be noticed. In this way, every act of creation is a form of remembering — a moment when the eternal borrows our hands to recall its own existence. And even now, another idea may already be circling you — unseen, patient, waiting for an opening.

When it comes, may you recognize its arrival. May you be brave enough to let it change you, and humble enough to let it move through you. To create is to listen. To design is to remember. To make is to become part of the eternal conversation.

We are not here to own ideas — we are here to honor them.

And in doing so, we keep the thread alive.

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