Greetings to all you big thinkers and daydreamers! Last week, we escaped the pull of our mundane tasks and looked up at the sky, turning clouds into ephemeral art and finding creative inspiration from their constant, quiet transformation. What did we gain when we let our minds wander? Perhaps a sense of the space between us and other things, especially natural things. For some of us, giving ourselves several minutes to think creatively helps us gain back some of that head space that we’ve ceded to other people. Taking that space back is an empowering creative act.
This week, we’re coming back to earth, specifically the demands and resources of our day jobs. Our hard work is supported by many people, and countless types of office supplies, but today our focus is staples. Sure, staples are a white-collar worker’s tool, a solution to a paperwork problem, but they are also a source of pure frustration. When you need a staple and don’t have one, irrational anger is one of my reactions.
There are few things more annoying than an empty stapler, especially when the supply closet is two floors down, and yet, it seems there might be enough half-empty boxes of staples to keep offices running for 900 more lifetimes. This curious paradox of abundance and absence is where our creative nudge begins.
Instead of finishing a draft of my “life as an artist” memoir, this week I cleaned out my desk drawers and found three full boxes of staples. That’s about two lifetimes worth by my own count! As a reuse assemblage artist, I just had to find something useful to do with all those staples I’ll never use.
And what about the glorious, jaw-like staple remover? There’s no antagonist equivalent in the office supply world. There’s no anti-ruler to override what your ruler measures. Who invented that brilliant tool designed to reverse a decision? What did they try before it—a coin? A fingernail?
And for those who think this feels a little too close to our paperclip nudge, let me assure you, the paperclip is all about temporary bonds and flexibility, but a staple is about finality. It's a decision. You notice a good staple—one that holds its papers together without a fight—far less than a bad one, that bent, flimsy thing that fails at its only job. This, too, is a lesson.
This week, we will go beyond mere paper shuffling and dive into the ways in which it can be a useful creative tool for us, with a little organizational assistance from one or more of these creative nudges I’ve stacked in the upper right corner of your desktop:
Stapled (Auditory & Poetic): Find a stapler and a few stacks of paper. Experiment with the sounds you can create. The satisfying thwack of a perfect staple. The quiet click when it's empty. The muffled thud when you use too many sheets. Create a short soundscape or a sound poem using only the sounds of a stapler.
The Bespoke Staple (Design & Reimagining): What might a bespoke staple look like? One that is so beautifully designed you would want to show it off, not hide it in a document. Sketch a design for a new, decorative staple. Think about its shape, its color, its material. Time to open your Etsy store!
Staple Canvas: Staple a few sheets of paper together in an unusual, specific pattern—say, a diagonal line or a circle of staples. Now, create a piece of art or a short story that must be contained within the boundaries set by the staples. This exercise uses the staple not as a tool for binding, but as a visual and conceptual constraint to challenge your creativity.
Stapleprints: Take a staple and attach it to a piece of paper. Carefully remove the staple so you are left with just the two tiny holes. Use these two holes as the eyes of a creature, the beginning of a map, or the starting point for a drawing. This exercise is about finding a story in the negative space and the small, permanent traces of an object.
An Ode to the Jam: Nothing is more frustrating than a jammed stapler. For this exercise, use a stapler and paper to intentionally create a piece of art that mimics this state of beautiful dysfunction. Use bent, half-stapled pieces of paper, tangled staples, and folds to create an abstract sculpture that celebrates chaos and things falling apart.
In a world full of temporary connections, the staple offers a powerful, physical symbol of things held firmly together. So, the next time you hold a stapler, witness a creative act in motion. That quick, percussive sound is a punctuation mark—a definitive choice that binds your ideas together. Here, you may find the inspiration for your next great creative decision, a choice that finally holds all of your scattered ideas in one, beautiful place.
This column was written with the help of Google’s Gemini Advanced, a powerful generative AI writing tool.
