Hilton and Mears: Creation…

It has been a long time since the last ‘proper’ Hilton and Mears so a brief introduction feels appropriate; these are conversations between myself, and good friend Chris Mears. We explore a topic or subject through the eyes of the model railway but with both heart and curiosity, taking the opportunity to reflect and learn a little more about ourselves…

Creativity and art are often discussed as if they were destinations or commodities, but I’ve come to see them less as products and more as living processes. The objects we make (paintings, models, sculptures) are not the point themselves. They are byproducts, traces left behind by curiosity, that most humane of instincts. Creativity begins in the ability to imagine alternatives, to explore what seems impossible, and to respond to those possibilities in ways that deepen our understanding of ourselves and each other.

I consider myself a creative person - more - I identify as one. It is important to me to feel creative. In recent weeks, whilst my day job is making things - creating - I have felt deeply un-creative and a little lost I suppose too…

I wonder if what I’m experiencing is just a confusion of two similar, co-dependant qualities, that share a single word but mean different things and have a different purpose?

A good creative exchange resembles a good conversation: a question answered with another question, not out of evasiveness but out of attentiveness. When we respond with humility, curiosity, and patience, we draw closer to one another. We clarify meaning. We show that we are present. Creativity works the same way. It is a dialogue between inner feeling and outward form, between the question we sense and the shape it eventually takes.

I love model railways. I have little interest, despite the transferable skills, in other craft activities. I don’t knit, I don’t really bake, I don’t paint (much) nor do I work with clay or enjoy photography (beyond that of trains and railways). I don’t find any point, any meaning, unless I’m working with trains - be that modelmaking, photography, design - it is all through this focus, with all my heart. I find working with my hands relaxing and I enjoy my job, but this is creating where, although obviously the result does matter, it is not personal.

The models I hold on to, they mean something.

Model railroading has always embodied this for me. People often describe it as a hobby that lets you travel—through time, through memory, into stories you loved as a child, or into places you’ve never visited except in imagination. Even when practiced pragmatically, the hobby returns us to that basic longing for connection, movement, and experience. It is less about the miniature landscapes themselves and more about the emotional terrain they help us explore. 

Over the past year, I’ve reconsidered how I participate in the hobby. I realized I had been practicing it in ways that felt increasingly alien to my body and spirit, as though I were following inherited methods rather than listening to what I actually needed. The creative act, at its root, is about expression—literally pressing something inward into outward form. A model becomes a way of holding an emotion in your hands, of giving shape to something felt but previously unarticulated.

I love getting lost in something I care about. Sometimes a memory, others just a found photograph or video; a railway scene that for whatever reason deeply resonates for me. This is enough to light the touch paper on motivation and an idea quickly becomes a reality. A natural energy, unhindered by self doubt over composition, material choice or method. The experience of creativity.

This is why I now gravitate toward quicker, more agile processes. It isn’t about rushing. It’s about working in real time with the feeling itself, recognizing it as it emerges rather than exhausting myself on laborious techniques that may never align with what I’m trying to express. Nimble methods let me course‑correct, like walking through a field toward a destination I can sense but not yet see clearly. Each step gives feedback. Each attempt refines the direction.

There is value in ‘just’ creating too of course, these days more than ever I recognise the benefit of making things. If I’m ruminating or lost in troubled or unhelpful thoughts I find solace at the bench, skills practice in every sense, grounding myself through the mindful act of each step, each moment in time. It is often the products of these that moments that I discard, gift or sell on… things made without meaning.

Yet creativity always carries a tension: it produces objects, but it is not about objects. We crave the tactile result, but the real work happens in the emotional space that precedes it. Advice in the hobby often misses this, because it tends to reflect the advisor’s insecurities more than the asker’s needs. True creative companionship requires sitting with someone in their uncertainty, not prescribing a method.

I am recognising that creativity and being creative are not the same thing - remembering that at times of personal challenge the former may be fleeting but the latter can always help. Good friendships offer a space to grow through sharing our insecurities and exploring the art of the possible as well as the models we create, and I’m especially grateful for this one.

As I move into this next era of my life in the hobby, I’m interested in questions of balance, identity, and connection. How does this practice help us become the people we were meant to be? How does it help us ask questions we don’t yet have words for? And how can we build a community that reflects not just our models, but our shared humanity?

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In case you weren’t aware ‘labels' are a great way to navigate the blog. Chris and I have co-created a lot of material over the last few years, labelled 'hiltonandmears'. He has also contributed to a number of my rambles, labelled 'chris Mears'. Until next time though, more soon...