(Video link here.) They Might Be Giant’s just released their new song I Made a Mess, which is a sort of  homage to something we strongly believe (#12 in our Manifesto): Making a mess is an essential part of improvising.

Here, then, is our visual ode to wondrous in-flux workspaces of some spectacular creatives to view while you listen. 

Alexander Calder’s studio…

and his astonishing desk…

Einstein’s was pretty swell…

…as was Steve Jobs…

Francis Bacon’s studio is curiously sublime…

James Rosenquist’s studio is full of ACTION

Here’s our own day’s mess in our old space, top (styled for a photo) and bottom (real!)

Life, and Creativity (even in our heads) can get WILD.

I just made a mess
I don’t know how 
I did but now 
the whole place is 
a wreck

I made a mess
and now I guess
that somehow I
have got to clean
it up

It’s a catastrophe
from ceiling to floor
from wall to the other wall
and nothing was spared
what wasn’t destroyed was spilled 
and what wasn’t spilled was
melted or scribbled on 
from ceiling to floor 
from wall to the other wall 

I made a mess 
I don’t know how
but now I have
a big mess on my hands
I’ll need a ton 
of mops and glue 
and soap and towels
and paint and 
power tools

Trying to clean it up
is making it worse
whatever I try to fix
gets even more wrecked
no matter how much I wash 
it looks even messier than 
it did before 
I’m making it worse 
by trying to clean it up 

I made a mess
and now I guess
that somehow I
have got to clean
it up