Creativity...Is it limited to a few?

[sooZen]

Artguy got me to thinking about creativity seeing as he is getting one of his poems published in a local rag. We all know how talented a painter he is but his creativity extends to what he writes too.

Many times in my booth or among my friends I hear, "I wish I was creative, I can never make anything like that!" Since I am also a teacher of the beading arts, I know this is a bunch of hooey. Some may not be able to do 'exactly' what I do but they can create something that expresses themselves, if they try.

Creativity is not limited to certain few...it is, for me, a way of living. Whether you are cooking a meal, helping the kid with a project, dressing up, cleaning the abode...no matter what you do, you can do it creatively.

I feel that creativity really shines when you find something you are passionate about. I have dabbled in many art forms over the years. I was a weaver and although I enjoyed that, it was not my passion, not something I dreamed about, couldn't wait to do. It took me many years of dabbling before I found my passion (in my mid forties) so it is never too late in life to find your real love. The weaving led me to the beads and before I knew it, I was collecting more beads than yarns...and so it goes.

Life should be a creative process, everyone is creative (this is my absolute belief) and if one says they are not creative, they doom themselves right off.

What do you think? Is everyone creative or just a few that have a gift? Is creativity limited or does one just need to find their passion?

Peace,
SooZen

[mtmynd]

hmmm... good question, my dear.

got me to thinkin' - throughout my years i have noticed so many people (men in particular) that have a blockage when it comes to any degree of creativity (altho we won't find it on sites such as this). it's as if creativity is somehow construed as being 'gay' or some such bullshit, even tho those same folks appreciate things like a fine car, a super tv set, a wicked power saw... even a finely built bass boat or a well-made shotgun - these things are creatively built, but that blockage comes in and says "whoa!" too bad for them, and 'them' are many... but it takes those 'many' to bring in the 'money' to those that do create, i figure.

as you well know - i could go on and on on this subject, but ....

[lescaret]

I think it's within everyone's grasp to be "creative", why not? But I think it's the old "nature vs nurture" scenario at work.

Naturally, we all have the capacity for creativity. But it's something that needs to be nurtured in some way to emerge. Mostly, it doesn't just bubble to the surface.

The problem in our advanced techno western entertainment culture is that, for the most part, we (as citizens & culture consumers) aren't nurtured to create, we're nurtured to sit back, be entertained, and spend money. Watch watch watch then buy buy buy.

Actually, this is what I like so much about Outsider Art. Outsider Art is created by people because they feel compelled to do so, as if they experienced within themselves a tsunami-like welling up of CREATIVITY and just hadda' bust it out somehow. It's not that they went to art school and studied how to "be an artist".

So, yes, creativity does emerge unprompted, I suppose, in certain individuals. But by and large I think that creatvity is not a quality that this culture stresses or values all that much.

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear B-SooZen, mtmynd and lescaret:


William Blake (1757-1827), one of my favorite artists:


http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/blake/


felt that all persons who functioned at a higher, "imaginative" level, were acting as artists no matter what they did. The barrel maker and the kitchen maid feeding hogs could make their activities art. It all happened through employing the imagination and avoiding a life led according to absolute, rational rule-abiding.

Blake therefore felt that Joshua Reynolds, the maven of the art establishment in the London of Blake's day, with Reynolds' list of descriptions for the aims, purposes and techniques of art, was the suppressor of real imagination-- and what Blake called "animating Genius . . ."


(link)

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/painti ... say/blake/


The ordinary world is enough to cope with for most people. Blake's universe, animated by the vast array of mythic beings and creatures with whom he populated his poems, drawings and paintings, exists all around us all the time, if only we use our imagination and see it.



Nice post, SooZen.



Zlatko

[Marksman45]

All someone needs to do to be creative is free up the energy for it.

Most people waste enormous amounts of energy unnecessarily concentrated on the world of daily affairs. They drain themselves so much it's even unhealthy. All they need to do is free up that energy, clean out the conduit that connects them to creativity

[hester_prynne]

Yes, this is a great post Soozen, and I've enjoyed reading the responses.

I think everyone is creative, and that it's a shame that many of us must restrict nurturing our creativity in order to do something outside of it to survive.

Seems I've always sang and always been writing too. But working in those realms has never been what put food on the table or paid the rent consistently as is required for most of us, not born into the financial circumstances that allow total nurturance of creativity.

In fact, these days, I feel pretty creative just having a part time job! Heh. Unfortunately, I found out today that it looks like this is going to be ending too. The woman whose mom I work for is being laid off and so will take over caring for her mom. She's been working for 20 years, but medicare budget cuts are forcing her out....it's very sad.

And me. Well hell, i'm fucking freaked!
Guess I better get creative...find something else quick!
I yi yi

H

[izeveryboyin]

bb... I think everyone has the potential to be creative, and there are some who have recognized that potential and followed it through. There is always a moment in a person's life where he and she has done something creative, no matter how minuscule. The white blouse with the red dress: creative. Spinach-stuffed manicotti for dinner: creative. Take Dixie highway instead of the Dan Ryan: creative. Creativity is all a matter of specualtion and will. If one wants to pursue the creativity that each creature is given upon birth, then they will, if the don't they won't. Simple as that. I don't even think you can really say there are some who are more creative than others. It's all a matter of who was more willing to recoginize their potential and dedicate themselves to it, like we have done.
--k

[WIREMAN]

I am constantly amazed by our species, we are born creators even though some become destroyers..................

[Lightning Rod]

I think creativity is a congenital condition.
My problem is that I can't seem to stop my creative tendencies.
God knows, I've tried every way I know to quell them.

The trouble is, that the stuff I've created keeps stacking up.
Part of the creative act is being able to shit, fart, sweat, spit, sneeze, vomit and piss.
You have to say goodbye to your byproducts.

[e_dog]

the potential for creativity is expansive, includes the many. but only the few have the time, means and media access to actually express and communicate that creativity to others, being recognized.

[abcrystcats]

Once you've lost it, it comes back very slowly, with a lot of pain. It's like unsealing a crypt ... and all the time you're doing it, you wonder what horrors you'll unearth ... the maggot-eaten skeleton of what once was whole and beautiful.

It's finally coming back, and breathing again. I can't believe it. This has taken months. It helped to pry my eyes away from the computer screen and back towards a pen and a sheet of notebook paper.

An hour or so ago I started writing lines. Half a page, no. Another couple lines. No again. Then all of a sudden there was one there: a poem. Almost passable. Then another -- again, almost passable.

This is after months of effort.

[ZyzxzxzyZ]

the maggot-eaten skeleton of what once was whole and beautiful.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

damn near to poesy

[mousey1]

I'm sure everyone's got creativity within them

but in order for the creativity to really flow

there must be the passion

that strength of feeling

that overwhelming motivation

that you cannot conceal



I'm looking for that passion
I wonder if it's something you can search for and find or if it finds you.
I'm wondering if the ground is still good enough to grow something besides weeds.

Nice topic BB. I'm enjoying the responses.

[sooZen]

Great answers, loved the creative responses! Thanks.

SooZ