What Does It Mean To Be Creative?
Have you ever thought how nice it would be to be able to gaze upon a beautiful scene and capture that beauty on a canvas propped on an easel or perhaps through a wide angle lens just as the sun sets?
My head turns whenever I see an artist at work, particularly in the marketplace where people and cars and birds all pass by oblivious to anything except their own agenda or destinations.
I love to linger in the shadows as if I might ‘catch’ the gift of art like a virus from which I have not been inoculated.
Ah, but apparently I was vaccinated at a very early age with comments like “You should color between the lines?” and “Whoever heard of a pink dog or a brown flower?”
These comments left a scar bigger than the small pox scar on my left shoulder.
I never came down with small pox but I am totally resistant to a paint brush or colored pencils.
What would I do with creative talent if I had it?
What would you do?
Who says we don’t have creative talent?!!
Of course we do, but recognizing it and living into our creative gift can be a life’s journey.
One problem with being creative is we need permission to color outside the lines.
If we were lucky as kids we weren’t given any rules and were allowed to make a lot of messes as we experimented with mud and finger paint. (Photo by Erika Fletcher on Upsplash)
No rules.
Only freedom and encouragement to experiment.
I remember wanting to write when I was barely old enough to hold a pencil.
“Hold it this way, not that way.”
My thoughts of the story I wanted to tell vanished as I struggled to hold the pencil in a hand that was full of cramps.
“Don’t waste paper – write (or draw) on the back of every sheet.” (Photo by Santi Vedri on Upsplash)
I had never seen an artist color on the back of their painting and I wondered if my work was contributing to the ‘waste’ of the Universe.
“You can’t write THAT…what would your grandmother think?”
I worried less about Grandma and a whole lot about Grammar. That ever present rule-bearer that followed me through school, squashing with vengeance every creative (OK…maybe it had a dirty word or a love scene or two) attempt to write.
Have you ever been chased by a Grammar with a wordswatter? (Photo by Ivan Shilov on Upsplash)
I often wonder how many musical instruments are under the bed of people I meet in the course of my day.
Flutes and drums and trombones that once were held proudly in an elementary marching band begin gathering dust once earning a living and raising children enter the picture.
When I ask about it I am usually told “I have no talent for music.”
(PhotobyAlexonUpsplash)
Instead of playing in a band or jamming with friends they experience music vicariously through headphones and live concerts, the thrill of turning their own breath into beautiful music dropped out of life like leaves from an oak tree in autumn.
“I could never be a musician. I’m not really that creative” (Photo by Ben White on Upsplash)
I hear these words of denial and despair from people every day and yet that same neighbor with a violin buried deep in her closet invites me to supper for Indian cuisine with curry and lemon, having created a concert of flavors that ring in my soul long after the meal is eaten.
The plumber fixing my sink devises a workaround when he has the wrong tool, creating a solution to a problem even as he insists he doesn’t have a creative bone in his body.
The quiet older lady sitting in prayer as she crochets baby blankets insists this is ‘only’ a craft she could do blindfolded.
I wonder if she ever would consider the prayers in every stitch as creating change in the world around her? (Photo by Imani on Upsplash)
A recent college graduate sets up her first household with thrift shop decor with an artist’s eye for design, rhythm, and color blended with the whimsey of youth— and a spirit that is willing to color outside the lines.
She tells me she isn’t creative because she studied history and she can’t change history and has no interest in decorating, knitting or lamb stew.
I wish she could see herself from the ‘audience’ of her life, a life overcoming the challenges of a college education as a deaf person.
What is creativity?
(Pboto by Sharon Pittaway on Upsplash)
If creativity isn’t experimenting, problem solving, expressing personality, seeing things differently than others, then what is it?
Some of the most creative people I know are very low income individuals who have learned to ‘make-do’ out of necessity and create works of great art in simple ways as they navigate life.
Great artists all!
I began this with a promise to show how we can be creative without being artists or musicians, writers or dancers.
The secret is we already are!
Creativity draws from the part of the brain that isn’t always logical or a rule follower.
You experience it when you reach for another spice for the stew you are building.
You are intuitive in what you add, your spice shelf is your palette, your family is your audience.
When our child or grandchild isn’t able to settle down, our creativity ramps up to meet the challenge by building roads in mashed potatoes with green beans.
Will this creativity ever land us in the museum of art?
Well, I have seen some pretty weird things in a museum that I don’t care for as much, but that is beside the point.
Creativity is not so much a ‘talent’ as it is a dream.
Most dreams happen when we are asleep.
This is a time when there is a lot of integration going on in our brains and when we awaken we remember things like cat boxes made out of chickenwire and automobiles flying.
We shake off the ‘nonsense’ of what seems like a meaningless dream and begin attending to our task list for a new day.
If this is what happens to our nighttime dreams, what ever happens to the dreams we have or have had for creative expression?
What do you dream of creating?
Why wait?
