A Variety of Hope
“Creativity is a variety of hope. It is too busy discovering to worry about whether or not it is important. Creativity is more important than a work of art. It is art. Creativity is an absence of fear. It is therefore a sign of love – at least it ought to be.”
- Richard R. Caemmerer Jr.
Free MIT Course on Creativity
School’s out for summer. But the creative mind is never at rest. Creative people understand that learning and discovery happen moment by moment and can be cultivated in many ways.
MIT offers free course content with no registration through their online program - OpenCourseWare OCW. Prof. Karen Boiko’s course “The Creative Spark” with reading lists and homework assignments is available for those who get excited by the word Syllabus and just cant wait to hit the books.
Etsy Interviews: Shared Inspiration
I enjoy browsing and buying from Etsy sellers. Always something interesting. And Etsy posts interviews of featured sellers – asking them to share their creative process and inspirations.
Pop over to Etsy and poke around or take the interview yourself.
Twitter: What are You Creating?
I heard an interview of a band lately where the journalist asked a meandering question that ended with the usual “What are your creative influences?”
We all want to know what is behind the music or book or painting. The musician stammered a bit and threw out a few bones for the journalist to pick at.
It’s Spring and I’ve been doing some “cleaning” but mostly taking inventory after a long winter. I am surprised at what has accumulated in the dark corners and junk drawers. As I survey the bits & bobs, I begin to ask myself “What are your creative influences?” People. Places. Things. An accumulation of concepts and colors and connections. Sifting and sorting that eventually ends up on the page or in a dance or paint on my hands. We are often unaware of all the pieces that go into our creations. It’s an almost endless stream of what we have experienced – what we have seen and heard and smelled and touched and tasted. What we have felt and what we have forgotten. We stammer and we try to find the bones. The invisible structure of our movements and thoughts and utterances.
Twitter asks “What are you doing?” Well, I am taking a creative inventory of influences and inspirations. Trying to remember old ones and find new ones and pass them around. Please join me and share your own.
Spring Cleaning
Spending some time cleaning my desk and found again a snippet of an e.e. cummings poem I had cut from a book, painted and framed. The word “Spring” caught my attention. And I was reminded of the way poetry helps me keep time. Like a calendar I come back each year to versions of my self – to new ways of reading the familiar.
I went to search for my yellow paged copy of 73 poems and saw this line from 35 that I love
(existing’s tricky: but to live’s a gift)
- e.e.cummings
Creative prompt: Take stock – What’s in/on your desk? Is clutter the sign of a creative mind? When are you at your most creative – when things are in disaray or organized? What seeds of inspiration are hiding beneath the rubble of time and neglect? What can you unearth today that will grow into something new tomorrow?
Sir Ken Robinson
“If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.”
—Sir Ken Robinson
Creative Spark: TED Talks
Something old. Something new. Sometimes it just takes the intervention of someone else’s ideas to help inspire/shape/transform/challenge our own.
Technology, Entertainment, Design
TED talks are one way to see how leading creators and thinkers view the world as we explore our own thoughts and actions in it.
Here is a talk by Sir Ken Robinson on the state of education and its impact on creativity.
You can find more talks on creativity at the TED website.
Trash Season
It’s trash season again. What elsewhere would be called spring is the slow unveiling of 5 months of the dearly discarded. On our postage stamp of once green – I collect the unusual suspects – wrappers, a dirty diaper, newspapers and plastic bags. The city brings out the power hoses and the sidewalks return to their usual gray/brown. In another month, a season of looking at your feet for fear of falling on the salted slopes of ice and snow will be replaced with occasional glances toward the sky. The welcome return of birds and leaves and even bees. Windows will be rolled down. Music will return to the streets. And people too. All who lived cloistered in quiet hibernation. Ready for a rebirth. Ready for color and song to thaw the senses.
Growing a Money Garden
Growing up I always loved looking through the Burpee seed catalogs. Amazed by the varieties and colors of things that could mysteriously emerge from beneath the boring brown dirt. Gardening is a creative adventure – you never know exactly how it’s going to turn out. But the best part is that you can enjoy seeing, smelling, touching and tasting whatever pops up.
+ In these cash strapped times who couldn’t appreciate the promise of $650 worth of vegetables from a $10 packet of seeds. Tell me how it goes.
A Day of Quiet
Quiet can be hard to come by. Even if there are no sounds outside, there are often the distractions of busy lives broadcasting 24/7 in our heads. That’s why I appreciate this quote by Evelyn Underhill
“Try to arrange things so that you can have a reasonable bit of quiet every day and do not be scrupulous and think it selfish to make a decided struggle for this.”
The Evelyn Underhill Association is sponsoring the 20th Annual Evelyn Underhill “Call to God: A Day of Quiet Reflection” which will be held on Saturday, June 13, 2009 at Cathedral College on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral.
