Final Project: Write Up

This is the last step of my final project: the two paintings that I have been working on. Overall, while I may not be exceptionally happy with the product itself just now, I have hope for what I know it will become over the next few weeks. More importantly, I am thrilled with what the project has meant for me personally, professionally and creatively.

The project was meant to stem from our personal plan for creativity, but nowhere in my plan does it suggest I would do an art project. It does, however, set the goal of spending roughly an hour in the weekday evenings on a creative pursuit. This did not happen consistently, until the few weeks before the project came due. Then I began to spend these small chunks of time on my painting... sort of. I studied, I researched, I planned, I practiced technique on test sheets, but I could not bring myself to mar the white canvas until I had a solid chunk of time to really 'get into' the work.

I learned that the plans I had made to become someone who could dedicate consistent small chunks of time to a project in order to complete it may actually be quite counterintuitive. I was more compelled to immerse myself, to lose track of time and spend much larger chunks. One Sunday and the subsequent snow day Monday were my most productive hours because of this chance to spend the entire day, so long as I felt the inspiration I needed. Interestingly, at the end of the Sunday, I was soaring. I could see the painting coming together. I liked the textures and the natural flow of the pieces. On Monday, I overworked them. I ended up trying to make them more full, make them say too much, make them more realistic, rather than the abstract or impressionistic aesthetic I had originally planned for them.

This helped me to realize something about me and my perhaps misguided goals. I am not good at dedicating consistent small chunks of time to something such that it is mostly completed before deadline, allowing for final tweaking. This is just the ideal that I think I've bought into that our society has taught me. Somehow, we've come to see the person who works in fits and starts, in creative bursts and at strange hours, rushing to deadline, as a inferior worker or a person of limited self-control. However, there are, I'm coming to believe, those of us who undermine ourselves by trying to force an unnatural work process. Consider my paper: had I simply spent the usual mad rush in completing it, I believe I would be more satisfied with the product. Instead, I asked for an extension and then I played with it in small chunks of time. I became unfocused and ineffective, spending a lot more time overall than I would have normally and being, as I said, unsatisfied with the work anyway. That Monday with the painting was the same. Because I had already spent the better part of Sunday on it, I had the creative flow of immersion on my side. I knew that another couple of hours spent on the ceramic branches the following evening, and then the painting of those the evening after would give me what I wanted. But when we had the snow day, I saw it as an opportunity to tweak, and I ended up overworking it to the point of disliking the overall product so much that I didn't even get to the branches. The Tuesday was spent trying to recapture the simplicity and beauty that I had lost by not sticking to the schedule that allowed for what I know see as a healthy and productive stress, a state of tension that helps me make smart decisions and work effectively.

So I am left with the feeling that while I didn't follow my plan completely, I did so enough to learn something valuable about myself and about what I may want to change about my plan. Maybe my giving into what would be seen as poor time-management by most anyone, my surrendering to the late nights and stressful bursts, will be my personal "Faustian bargain" if I am to create actual products (in writing, painting...anything, really, that it project oriented) that I am happy with.

I felt like the project did stem from the personal plan in an unexpected way. As I read through the plan, I see an underlying theme of family and keeping it central in my creative priorities. This project certainly did that. In fact, it became quite symbolic of that. It was a way of finishing the house that had been Barry and my co-creative project for so long. It recognized the tree motif that I had naturally been drawn to as I decorated the house, and it now helped me understand why I had wanted that symbol to permeate my surroundings: it was symbolic of the very family I wanted to be the center of this home. It represented growth, struggle, branching out, and the fruition of love. I am at a point where I feel we are 'harvesting' after years of toil, and the bounty is so beautiful, so worth the effort. I wanted to capture all of that, and the project became a means for this and, really, quite a therapeutic and cathartic process.

Definite barriers in my process included the struggle with effective use of time, which I've already addressed, but also with my own inhibitions. I found myself very afraid of the project. I admitted openly that I lacked the confidence to make those first brush strokes. At one point in my life, as an undergrad art minor, I would have had no problem with confidence in my skills, but I have experienced painful and embarrassingly public lessons (a botched solo singing performance in my twenties comes to mind) about how you really do 'lose it' when you 'don't use it.' I had to retrain myself to some extent, so a lot of the effort I put in happened before I even touched brush to canvas. I enjoyed that relearning, actually. It was like visiting an old friend - awkward at first, but thoroughly rewarding and worthwhile to remember why I loved it in the first place.

I suppose this was one of the great personal lessons for me in the project: that I could regain the creative passion I may have once had, but has now become lapsed. It gave me a sense of hope for what I could do in the future, what goals I could more comfortably set. I have a renewed faith in my creative ability. I may be lacking in skill, but I'm not lacking in motivation or in the ability to relearn and regain. It is more difficult, of course, than just keeping that creative muscle in shape, but it is possible and rewardingly worth it.

Interestingly, I also found that even though I sacrificed some time I might have normally spent on my profession, having this completely separate and personal creative project helped spark my interest in my job. I felt more able to use work time effectively. I was more interested in what was happening in my classroom. I felt more like me, I think, and less like a machine. It felt more like I had realigned some priorities in a way that was personally and professionally satisfying and balancing.

So, in all, I've learned an appreciation for the natural, or intuitive, creative process, which may well vary from person to person. It should always be respected, even if only by the creator. I learned that I have become rusty, but that reviving an old passion is rejuvenating for the soul. I can see that creativity is a cognitive effort, but perhaps more importantly, it is an emotional endeavor that can be quite healing for the psyche and that can provide greater meaning to our lives.

The carry-over into my classroom is that I hope to help my students feel comfortable in their own creative skins, in their own processes. I hope to not force them into believing that a single way of doing things is the 'correct' way, but I hope to acknowledge and engender in them an understanding of their own best creative processes. I hope to plan in a way that flows better, and allows for building on skill, without undue periods of falling out of practice, but also without unnecessary rehashing and overworking of a single thing (concept, skill, project). I hope to help them understand the importance of the process over the project by using more reflective activities, such as the one I'm doing just now.

As I said earlier, I'm not thrilled with this particular product itself just yet, but it's okay because the process was well worth it, and what I've learned from it gives me the faith that I'll make it what I want... I have a restored confidence.

Class at Home: Contemplating my Creative Process

1. Identify a Project: I have chosen to consider our last house as the creative project for this assignment. It was the first that Barry and I planned and executed from beginning to end. Others had either been modular projects (from when Barry was running the dealership in Kalispell) or based on the plans of others with our own creative tweaks. This one was, however, one that we wanted to have more complete creative control over. We wanted the concept and execution to be something we could take ownership of, with the consideration that because of the softening market, we may be in the home for longer than any of the past projects.

2. Beginning of my Process: The actual impetus for a new house project is usually born of different motivations. In this case, we had sold the only spec home that we had lived in because we were offered the right price, and we could get another lot for a reasonable price. We were no longer home-owners and that needed to be remedied. But more importantly, we were ready for the project. I think we had come to a point where we needed the joint endeavor because it's usually a pretty healthy thing for our marriage. We work well together, and we become closer as we get the chance to spend the time and energy on something that's a common goal. We also wanted something nicer than our last home. We felt ready to make the step into a different market, one with bigger risk but (hopefully) greater pay-off.

Our house projects generally work with us taking different but complimentary roles. I design, conceptualize, and figure the best methods for execution. I also do the bulk of the research. Barry manages the project, the timelines, the sub-trades, etc., and he provides the element of uncommon commitment. He's the 'Energizer bunny' that does not run out of energy before completion. We execute a lot of the work itself together, which I will address later. But I wanted to lay out the symbiotic process that we already knew as we made the decision to do our last build. It was certainly the largest factor in our feeling confident that we could do it.

3. Playing with the Idea: I tend to play with the idea of a new house incessantly. By the time we sold our previous house, I probably had over twenty house plans bookmarked on my computer as inspiration points, and I had four or five different plans that I had redrawn on 81/2X11 sheets of graph paper with enough detail for a draftsman to easily complete full blueprints. House planning, dreaming, and drawing is one of my favorite pastimes. Barry and I tend to hit up open houses, snapping disallowed photos of things we like. We also enjoy driving through various neighborhoods for inspiration, especially when we visit different cities with different aesthetics than what you commonly see in Southern Alberta. We took an architecture class together as undergrads, and I completed a few others as part of my art minor, so we are familiar with different periods and influences. We get pleasure out of scoffing at those that mix craftsman elements with English country, for example. So going into this new house, we wanted to create something of consistent style, but something that would still have the mass appeal needed for resale. We wanted this house to really showcase what we were capable of doing.

In hindsight, I can see that I often begin a project in such a way. I have a general goal, but it is only a guideline - I don't like tying myself to any strict focus from the beginning. Then I like to spend time just playing, reading, viewing, sketching, figuring, even if it's for a project I know I won't do. I often imagine scenarios where I would do it. For example, with the house plans I had drawn up by the time we sold the house, I had at least on of each of the following: "if I had a home business" plan, a "if we were a retired couple" plan, a "if I was single" plan, and a "if money were no object" plan. These allowed me to dream a little, to pull various things from each thing that would appeal to me and my actual situation.

This portion of any creative project is usually the most enjoyable for me. I get to be truly imaginative. I feel a bit like a kid, except that I can also feel the effect of experience and maturity in my play. There's also little stress and no firm deadline, so the motivation is purely intrinsic, which is pretty darn cool. This is the stage I'm at right now for the next house. We know there will be a next, but it's not slated for anytime soon, so I just play with ideas and scenarios, and when the time comes, it's easier to hone in on what I am confident will work.

4. Taking Action: I see this a the moment we settled on a house style, and I began drafting final blueprints. We had already been out of our other house for a few months, summer was coming, and we had closed on the new lot. We decided that a French Normandy would be a distinctive choice that would be least offensive to the largely traditional market in Cardston. I found a house online that inspired the outside design, and I drew up the plans in rough format. I waited until school was out to draw actual blueprints. I had enough experience with draftsmen and architects to know that they wouldn't do it just as I wanted. They always feel the need to put their stamp on it somehow, and I really didn't want that. It was my first summer that I didn't take a summer job for some extra cash and I hadn't yet started the M.Ed., so I had the time and energy to devote myself fully to the house.

I drew the plans in 'old school' fashion, with large sheets of drafting paper, a geometry set, and a calculator. I even managed to figure roof schematics. I loved this part of the project because it was when I felt I learned the most. It also energized me for the next stages of the project, beginning with excavating and then all the other really rough phases during which it doesn't look like much. (Because of Barry's job at the time, he wasn't around much either, whereas I was onsite daily.) I was also more open to the trades when they asked if they could experiment with something new. My brother, for example, who did most of our framing, asked to build our large 8/12 pitch roof on the ground and then crane it into place on prefabricated walls he would make in Raymond. I said sure; the whole project, after all, had the feel of a loose experiment, but all along, I was confident in the skills of those involved.

In all, the house took almost exactly a year. I drafted in July, we dug in August, we moved in the following June, but we had loose ends we finished up that summer, including the yard. We were the general contractors for the whole project, but we also did certain things ourselves: the roofing, the insulating, the painting, the flooring, all of the electric and plumbing beyond rough-in, some of the finishing, much of the exterior finishes, and the yard (including landscape, deck, patio, gazebo, etc.). Essentially, it was as if both of us had a second full-time job that ate most every evening and all of our weekends. Some of the factors that kept us going included the feeling of constant progress (every stage made us feel that much closer to the end result), the chance that we had to work together (many memorable late nights with of us tiling and talking, our process down to a science by that time), and the sheer exhilaration of creating something that finally felt more like 'us'.

There were, of course, several extrinsic motivators, as well. Construction loans work such that you have to keep the process going in appropriate order to facilitate each draw of cash. We were also working to beat times of rush in various trades. And we hated living in the little studio apartment with most of our things in storage. In hindsight, I see that there is a pattern in the majority of creative projects that I do of making myself slightly uncomfortable as a means of ensuring completion/remaining motivated.

5. Barriers and Momentum: Momentum, I suppose, is somewhat addressed above, although I will add that it also helped to work in spurts. We knew, for example, that the best time for us to complete all the interior painting was over the February break in school, so we simply HAD to have all the subtrades to that point completed and all the materials purchased and colors chosen. Then we spent entire days and late into the nights completing that particular phase so that we could be done for the next thing we had scheduled, for the next burst of effort. Another factor in our momentum was unexpected. We had a lot of people in town take note of the house, and it became a popular spot for people to drive by and check out progress, so that gave us a little extra push in times we needed it.

Many of the barriers that we experienced came as a result of the problems inherent in general contracting. I understand why people hire that out. It's a hassle. Subtrades can be difficult to line up, to keep committed to your job, and sometimes, to even find (we ended up roofing, for example, because we couldn't find a roofer willing to do our job). They also invariably wanted a great deal more money once they had completed the job, which was frustrating as we felt it was part of their professional responsibility to make their original quotes accurate. Most often, these barriers were overcome by our bargaining with people or by our taking on the added work ourselves, which generally meant more research, more learning by experience and mistake, and more time.

The opposite sometimes held true, though. We had planned to do some things ourselves - the exterior rock work, the laying of sprinklers, as examples, but by the time we reached that point, we had to acknowledge our exhaustion and hire it out. We also became good at figuring into our costs what our time was worth.

I think that commonly, it is a set of outside barriers that stall a project for me, and if I'm able to solve them, it is generally through problem-solving or just learning to 'take care of it' myself. I do tend to bite of more than I can chew, too, so I see a pattern of burning out in many projects. I have quite a few unfinished things that became rather burdensome in the end, and I decided they just weren't worth my time anymore.

6. Completion: We swore we wouldn't move in to this house until every last inch was completed, at least on the inside, but we had to eat our words. We were waiting for countertops, and there was filling and repainting of trim left, closet organizers, and other odds and ends left to complete when we moved in. We did strategize, though, by putting most everything in the basement family room, setting up a bed in one of the basement spare bedrooms and an impromptu kitchen at the bar area, and only allowing ourselves to unpack into certain rooms when each was completely finished. There was the odd area, though, that we got too comfortable with being unfinished. The downstairs studio, the storage room and the storage room were only recently completed. Some final caulking and paint touch-ups have yet to be done, so in some ways, we stalled out at the end. Unfortunately, it just becomes easy to live with something a little incomplete when the final product has been so satisfying in other ways.

7. The Essence of My Process: In my creative process, I need the time to play, I like to learn something new or hone an ability/craft, I like working with people I know I can trust, I tend to take on a lot and burn out before completion, but I generally push to the end... at least until I have something that meets or exceeds my original expectations.

A few pictures from Christmas-time last year:

Finding Warm Light

I loved Jim's analogy in class of how painters will sometimes move or vacation in spots that provide them with the right, warm light. There, they will start a bunch of paintings that they can then finish at home when the light there has changed appropriately with the seasons.

This made me think of the way I'm approaching my final project. I have decided on it, but I sometimes fear that I'm not spending enough time at it, just because I have no tangible product in the works yet. I have spent hours searching for inspirational work and experimenting with sketches that play with balance and with painted sheets of trial textures, color combinations, and washes. I have been, I suppose, finding a warm light, a place of security and starting ground. I like that this is something I should see as progress, rather than feeling anxious about the product.

I've actually been considering something similar in relationship to my personal plan for creativity and how it is working (or, as is more accurately the case, not working). I find it interesting that I always give myself a personal checklist of sorts and that I prioritize it such that I get the 'not fun' stuff done before I allow myself to do the 'fun' stuff. For example, in my marking, I always force myself to finish a set of essays before I mark a class set of projects. This is because I think I'll be more effective that way - I'll work through the more laborious stuff in order to get to the more enjoyable. But, if I'm truly honest with myself, this rarely works. It generally just means that I put off both things. What if, instead, I allowed myself the 'warm light' start of doing the thing I am more personally motivated to do first. Might I not then find myself in a better frame of mind for the other work? I would perhaps feel more productive, more capable, more 'on a roll'. I think I need to try this out.

Using Benjamin Zander's Ideas

I wanted to address a project I've been doing in my 30-1 class, one that I consider a huge exercise in creativity. I have, over the last few years, struggle with how to better teach my students how to write a critical/analytical response to literature. I find that the more I stress the process or reteach the elements, the more confused and frustrated the students get.

Watching the PopArt video in class with Benjamin Zander was inspiring, in that it offered an alternative to that stressful classroom structure that usually exists because of competition and 'the grade', which only allow for students to concentrate on their performance and not directly on actual skill-building. I wanted to use his ideas as best I could with my 30-1 students, especially with that most stressful of things: the critical/analytical essay. So here's what I did:

• I downloaded the video and showed it to the class. I told them it was to benefit the essay we were about to write, and that while that might not make immediate sense, it soon would.
  
• I stopped the video at a few key points. The first was to ask them what grade they all could expect on their next essay. It was fun to watch most of them immediately open to a page in their binders and begin a letter: Dear Mrs. Olsen... I hadn't even brought up how that would be part of the process.
  
• Another pause in the video was after he talked about how he could now be completely open and truthful with his students. I explained that this was what I was going to do. They would write an essay, and I would dissect it word by word, thought by thought, but that they (hopefully) wouldn't find that threatening because they already had the A.
  
• After he demonstrated with the young cellist, I gave them a run-down of all the resources they had and would have from me, including exemplars, a topic that fit our recent text studies but wasn't overly complicated, and past handouts on structure and dos/don'ts.
• They wrote their letters, and we discussed the topic and some texts together.
  
• They were given appropriate class time to write an essay, as if they were in the diploma setting.
  
• They handed them in, and we moved on to our study of King Lear, during which I divided them into groups of five for group study activities.
  
• Every other day, I would have one groups essays ready for revision. I made audio recordings of myself reading their essay aloud because I always suggest that as a strategy for finding awkward spots. Then I went from beginning to end, critiquing and offering suggestions in all five of the categories for scoring. I was brutal (without being personal, of course), but I constantly reminded them as they downloaded their recordings that they shouldn't let that get them down because they already had an A and because they were now trained to exclaim, "How fascinating!" instead.
  
• While most of the class worked on Lear, each group would get its own two days of listening to recordings and working on the essay with me giving them 1:5 attention at every step.
  
• Once all the revised essays were handed back in (with drafts and letters attached), I graded them all, still giving feedback as I normally would. In a class of 28 students, all but three scored - legitimately - proficient (an A) or higher. Those three I spoke to individually, and they all elected to write one more draft to make it a real A. They all now know what their work looks like when it's at that standard.
  
• This coming week, they will be writing their next critical/analytical essay (without the promise of an A), and I'm excited to see if all that work has paid off for them.

It was, in all, a very time-consuming process (each recording was roughly a 1/2 hour in length, and I still spent another ten or so hours on the second grading, not to mention the extra class periods), so I'm still undecided if I will make it a regular practice, but at least I feel like I was doing something proactive and creative about a problem in my teaching.

Another Intelligence

Cathy said something in her presentation on Wednesday that has stuck with me. She talked about how she believed in an emotional or interpersonal, almost spiritual, creativity. At the time, it popped in my head that I vaguely remembered that Gardner had recently added an emotional intelligence to his multiple intelligences theory. Since then, I've spent a few extra minutes trying to look that up on his website, but didn't find much. I plan and hope to devote a bit more time to it later. The idea fascinates me. Being that I've been studying and writing my paper on his Creating Minds book, and each of the modern-era figures that he studies in that book are indicative of creative genius in a specific realm of intelligence, I wonder who he could have added to cover that emotional intelligence. A poet? A spiritual leader?

I think that on the top of my list for studying creativity in an emotional genius would be my mom. Cheesy? Yep. Absolutely legitimate? You bet. Who better knows how to calm a troubled heart in a unique and customized way than a mother. Anyway, I know I don't have actual research on the emotional intelligence, and I may have dreamed about the addition, but still... makes me think...

Youth and Experience

I've been thinking a fair amount about last class - the illustration from the board and the discussion around it. I really liked that idea of the two elements, youth and experience, being necessary to achieve best creative potential. There is so much to be gained from each...the innocence, courage, exuberance, inquisitiveness, etc. of our childhoods and the wisdom, work ethic, skill, exposure to other influences, the amalgam of trials and triumphs that make us better problem solvers, etc. of our experience. All these things can be and should be a part of anything we create. We're not really complete or optimum creative beings without both elements - a yin/yang-type principle.

I made the comment in class that this makes sense when you consider some people that you may know. I was thinking about people I've met and some I know quite well who are out of balance in that they haven't really 'grown up.' They have strong creative genius, but they don't have the skills to harness it, and you can see that they'll likely never live up to their creative potential until they develop those skills. It's interesting because for a while, there was a pop psychology movement about the concept of finding the inner/repressed child that was sometimes taken too far. I guess I just always find it reassuring when I'm reminded of the wisdom of balance and moderation.

I know, too, that there are many people (and perhaps society as a whole) who are out of balance in the opposite way...they are much too 'adult' and don't know how to have fun, to let go, to trust, to giggle. In my musings since class, I've been wondering if that's not my common way of becoming unbalanced. I remember my own father telling me (when I was in jr. high) to "lighten up, for Pete's sake!" I'm glad he told me that then because in some ways, I have lightened up since then, but I know that tendency in myself. I've even been considering my personal creativity plan that we handed in earlier in the course. If I think back on it, I can't remember any balance in that. It was fairly rigid/structured and focussed on the work of creativity, not really the playful fun of it, at least not until I had all the 'adult' stuff done.

We learn specific things from specific stages in our lives; moving on shouldn't mean abandoning those lessons we gained in our youth and innocence.

A Lull

I keep having this small, but persistently annoying recurring thought about how I need to write a journal entry. Every time it comes up, though, I fret a little about what I could write about, and then I shove it back into the far crevices of mind, the spot where goes all my a-la-Scarlett-O'Hara "I'll think about that tomorrow" intentions.

I know I've been intellectually charged from the lectures and discussions in class, but for some reason, I just feel tapped out when it comes to mustering up something insightful to reflect on. I'm wondering if our minds aren't a lot like our bodies and once we've taxed them, sometimes they just need a rest. In the physiology of body-building, after a work-out on a particular muscle group, the muscles won't actually build unless they're given a rest. They'll just remain, literally, in a frayed state and actually begin to break down.

So maybe I'm in a mental lull right now because I have to let the mental workout finish its job while I rest. I can't really imagine getting more frayed in the head than I feel right now.

Massey Lectures

The other evening, I was driving home from my parents' place in Raymond, and I caught an interesting lecture on CBC. It was on the Ideas program, and they were playing a portion of the Massey Lectures 2009. Since then, I've tracked down some information about the program and the lectures. I appreciated CBC's synopsis of Ideas as "a series prepared for people who just enjoy thinking." That's precisely what this particular program did for me that evening. Specifically, I found myself making some interesting connections between our course and the ideas of Wade Davis.

As the CBC website explains, "The 2009 Massey Lectures are entitled The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Cultures Matter in the Modern World. Anthropologist Wade Davis argues that the myriad of cultures that make up our world are 'humanity’s greatest legacy…the product of our dreams, the embodiment of our hopes, the symbol of all we are and all that we have created as a wildly inquisitive and astonishingly adaptive species.' Wade Davis takes us on an astonishing journey through some of the great cultures and civilizations on earth, fragile and endangered, yet essential to our survival as a species."

In the episode I caught, Davis was speaking largely about the various regions and cultures of the earth that have lost tradition, and therefore knowledge, most often through a loss of geographical standing or indigenous language. It was fascinating that geography and language were so closely tied to each other. I found myself thinking about Gardner's ideas about what he called "symbol systems" and how each field has its own language, traditions and specialized medium (or media) of communication with interesting nuances and challenges. This means that one's skill is tied to his/her fluency in that symbol system. There were corollaries that made such perfect sense as I listened. I should have recorded those thoughts more immediately.

I can't remember Davis' exact words, but a few times he spoke to the idea that losing the land and the language was a tragedy because the stories and languages of any culture were the keys to its knowledge and ultimately to its preservation. Though a mythical tradition may not be considered verifiable knowledge in many circles, it became clear as I listened that it was because it was an art, a creative process. With the loss of a symbol system, skill was lost, another path to creating knowledge and understanding of our world and our humanity was gone. I began to see a connection between creativity and survival, similar to what I'd seen with Frankl's work, but this was on a more global scale. It was a little frightening, to be honest.

Halloween and Sadie Hawkins - a good excuse for falling behind on my journal?

So I've not been doing the requisite number of posts this past week or so. Life has been crazy busy, and I haven't been well. I'm hoping an explanation of some of the creative endeavors I have been a part of, though, will help as I plead my case.

Halloween, for me, is almost as magical a time of year as Christmas, and I've often wondered why. I've considered that perhaps I am a bit of a morbid personality, which is not an idea I loved. This year, being a part of this course, I'm wondering if it's not because it is, quite possibly, the most creative time of the year. People plan and dream and try to top last year's costumes and decorations. They look to be inspired. They consider the effect they want: scary, sexy, funny, etc. and they plot and conspire and execute something for the sheer joy of it. I figure it's either the creativity factor that has made me so enamored, or it's the excess of free candy.

This year, I took my costume cue from a picture I saw on Facebook last year of a child's costume. I've been planning on it since then. I did some previous work (which I already wrote about), and then I ran out of energy. (Given my HUGE love for the season, this speaks to my alarming difficulty with energy. Junior, as we call him/her, is sapping all my reserves!) Fortunately, I have an incredibly supportive husband who took over and rigged it up using his hockey pads...never would have thought of that on my own! I usually go for the scary/creepy vibe with my costumes because, well, you can at Halloween. The rest of the year, you have to pretend you don't believe in haunts and things that go bump in the night.


Friday, the 30th was also our school's Sadie Hawkins dance, one of many traditional student union sponsored activities.

CHS has another admittedly odd tradition that happens with Sadie's... a marriage room and ceremony. Students pick a theme for the entire dance. (This year was "Sadie Goes Neon") Then a group of teachers, select students, or members of the parent committee (depending on who's willing and able that year) choose a coordinating theme for the marriage room. It's kept a surprise, and that night, students partner up and take someone with them in to the room to be 'married'. We have cheesy fake rings, we write and enact a wacky ceremony that fits the theme, and we generally have a lot of fun with it. Usually, students get married several times that evening, which I find particularly funny given the Mormon heritage of our community.

This year I was in charge of the marriage room because I came up with the bright idea (literally and sarcastically figuratively) of creating an outer space setting using black lights. My eager committee of grade 10 girls and I covered all six sides of a room with black plastic. We created neon spaceships about 5 ft. tall/wide, and the shop helped us build a tunnel, a "worm hole", for students to enter through. This took 'just a few' after-school hours, but it was a lot of fun.

On Friday night, three teachers - myself included - came dressed as aliens. We switched off different roles, the funnest one being the person who 'married' five couples at a time. We adlibbed a fair amount, but stuck loosely to the following script that I wrote:

(Meeting the travelers as they first come through the wormhole, popping out and scaring them perhaps.) Welcome, weary travelers from a distant time and place to the alternate universe (strange long gibberish with tongue clicks, etc.). You look to be of planet earth, so-called Homo sapien, so I will endeavor to speak slowly and clearly to help your underdeveloped brains understand.

My name is (strange long gibberish with tongue clicks, etc.), which in your tongue means “most beautiful/handsome one of great wisdom and wealth.” I am the royal consulate of marital status, and I must inform you that in our universe (as well as your own – you just haven’t fully discovered this yet), you cannot physically survive in our atmospheres unless you form partnerships. You have a limited amount of time before you expire, unless we have you immediately joined in what you call wedlock. [We, of course, call it the more poetic and romantic term (funny shrieking, unpleasant noise).] Please pair off in front of an appropriate transportation pod for the commencement of the matrimonial ceremony before your health suffers further. Look! You are already looking terrible – so sickly, so horrifying.

Turn to your appropriate partner, and lock eyes to communicate telepathically. Never mind, I forgot your appalling mental incapacities. Just turn and smile – you are about to save each other from painful suffocation.

Now for the primitive spoken vows, since we must. Please repeat after me: "I, humanoid life form, take you, fellow space journeyer, to be my partner as we boldly go where no man has gone before. You will be my stargazing companion, forsaking all other alien life forms (excepting, of course, the event of abduction). I am devoted to your extraterrestrial well-being, safety and happiness. The force will be strong with us."

If you agree to take this equal as someone with whom you can jump aboard your identified alien craft and continue your space explorations “to infinity and beyond”, please respond with, “Nanu, nanu” (or some other strange, maybe even difficult, phrase).

Now to fully contractualize your union, create the sacred Vulcan sign with your right hand, extend it, and "kiss" your spouse.

The rings you were given earlier will symbolize your enterprise, and allow for your continued breathing in our universe. Please exchange them now. Go forward; live long and prosper!

I guess I'd just say that it was a busy, but very fun, week. I may not have been writing journal entries, but I was definitely exercising some creative muscle.

Connections to "Man's Search for Meaning"

I'm up in Edmonton right now at an Emerge conference. As I drove up here on Sunday afternoon, I popped in the audio book of Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. I had been thinking of adding it to my ELA 30-1 courseload, and I had hoped to read and plan that over the summer, but it just didn't happen. I remember reading it as a teenager when my dad gave it to me (we still swap good reading finds), but I didn't remember it well.

As I drove and listened, I was intrigued by the way I kept making connections with the class. He writes a few times about different aspects of personality or morality being snuffed out when people are in survival situations. They can, to some extent, be wiped out as a personality and a human without actually dying...although his contention is that once we've lost that 'meaning' in our lives, we are essentially defeated.

It began to dawn on me how creativity is not simply an endeavor. While listening, I started to feel that it was, for many intensive purposes, a right - an elemental part of what makes us human. And given the Nazi's overall intent in the Holocaust (aside from genocide itself) of dehumanization, this idea is almost proven in Frankl's work. Prisoners were stripped of any creative tools, creative property (Frankl himself had his original manuscript taken), and even creative ability (as best that could be taken...they were stripped of spirit). Frankl writes of people, including himself, who found creative purpose. He began rewriting his work on tiny scraps, using other unusual media. He admits that this work was what kept him alive, and he saw this hold true for others. There was hope for those that found a way to create something and a way to find beauty in their surroundings because that was one way of formulating meaning.

In the most memorable passage (that I listened to a couple of times because I LOVED it), he describes how interesting it was that some prisoners stood, admired, and enjoyed a beautiful sunset, even while it was framed by the juxtaposing barracks of the camp.

I wish I could remember some of the other connections that came to mind as I drove. If I had the time, I'd skim through the book, but that's just not happening right now. Maybe someday I'll reread with the particular intent of analyzing the role of creativity.

Playing in Solitude

After doing that class activity where we created a costume of the random items, I've been reflecting on the reality that I am very much someone who often prefers to 'play' alone. I think there may be a few reasons for that:

• As a personality, I simply enjoy solitude. I think best there, and I don't deal with distractions well. I felt very different from others as I grew up. I was most at home in my own head.
  
• I enjoy others and interactions with others, but I also know that I can really be a people pleaser, so when I play by myself, I get to do what I really want to do, rather than just acquiescing to someone else.
  
• I am easily annoyed by what others do and don't get 'serious' about. I'm not very tolerant that way, I'll admit. I also just find that I'm busy enough that I don't think of many things as being a big deal. "Just make a decision, and go with it, already!" is often the mantra that runs through my head while working and playing with others.
  
• I've lived and worked alone for almost eight years now (for the most part - teaching is generally quite solitary, and my husband is on the road and away from home about 80% of the time), and I think I've developed behaviors (and perhaps even neural patterns - ways of thinking) that have helped me survive and thrive in that setting. I'm a product of evolution of sorts. I've often wondered how I'll do when my environment changes.
  
• Even though I consider myself a fairly adept communicator, I do have a VERY difficult time communicating a vision or abstract idea to the point where someone else could create or co-create it (nor am I that good at seeing others' visions), and I'm usually too much of a control freak to let go of a vision.
  
• I'm fairly competitive, and competing with myself is more fun for some reason than competing against others. Maybe I like that nobody loses or gets hurt in that scenario. Maybe it's just that I feel the most evenly matched there.
  
• Boiled down, group play often feels enforced or contrived (therefore, not play at all, but work); whereas solitary play is spontaneous and natural.
  
• I'm not crazy about others seeing my process because its often messy, embarrassing, and too revealing.
  

An interesting thing that just struck me, though, is that my favorite group activity is conversation. I love a good chat. I enjoy seeing others' perspectives and ideas and getting a chance to voice my own. That, to me, is quality 'play' time with others. I guess I'm just not great at enacting those ideas with others.

In the kitchen...

Since studying the material in this course, I've come to realize how central creativity is to the human experience. We are all creative in different spheres, and it's like we all need that creative release (in whatever form it may come) for personal catharsis and psychic equilibrium.

I'm beginning to notice the various areas of life that I enjoy some creative 'charge'. One place I've recently considered is the kitchen. I grew up in a home full of good cooking. My mom is an excellent cook, schooled in large part by her mother who could feed an entire threshing crew with an hour's notice and who knows how to use fresh, whole foods for the tastiest meals. Moreover, my dad had a natural talent in the kitchen - he's a master griller. Twice, my family owned or ran restaurants - once when I was young enough that my first memories take place there. The second time, I was twenty, and I helped design the space and the menu. Food - good food - has always been a big part of my life.

Lately I've been reflecting on the many times I've gone on a baking kick, a bread making kick, a soup kick, etc. I have been known to relax by spending hours in the kitchen. I'm just now realizing that, in large part, I enjoy it because of the creativity involved: the experimentation, the development of a final product to be aesthetically enjoyed, the chance to express myself in a unique form.

This holiday weekend, that expression that I felt the need to release was a celebration of harvest, just like is intended with Thanksgiving, and I found myself drawn to the kitchen to find an expressive form. As I wrote on my personal blog...

How fitting that on the holiday we celebrate harvest and bounty, I felt compelled to actually harvest some things from our garden? (I'm usually best at planting it, tending it, and never really using it. Maybe I run out of steam by harvest time.) Earlier this fall, I had used about a tenth of the zucchini (those plants just never stop!) to make a batch of nineteen loaves of to-die-for zucchini bread. I'd share the recipe, but then I'd have to kill you. I will say, however (for all you skeptics out there who don't believe it's really that good), a key ingredient is a great deal of chocolate chips.

Anyway, this past weekend, I decided to use up a bunch of parsnips and some carrots. I don't really remember planting the parsnips, but they're there, and they're huge! I had heard of parsnip soup, so I did a little researching and I made my own recipe that turned out pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself. It's not exact, since I made it up as I went, but if you're interested in trying it, here's what I did:

• Three yellow onions and a head of celery sauteed in about a cup or so of butter. Add garlic, salt, tarragon, and chili powder.
  
• Smother over peeled and cubed parsnips and carrots (about a 5:1 ratio of the two). As far as the overall amount of parsnips and carrots, I had enough to fully cover two large baking sheets a couple inches deep. Or put another way, when I dug them up, they filled a 3 gallon bucket - I know, these are some exact measurements.
  
• Roast vegetables for about 1/2 an hours, until tender and a little browned.
  
• Transfer to a pot, and simmer them in about a gallon of vegetable broth for another half hour or so.
  
• I let it sit overnight, since I was taking it to Raymond for the family to eat the next day. This may or may not have affected the taste (steeping, perhaps), but it certainly made it easier to puree when it wasn't boiling hot.
  
• Use a blender to puree the soup. Thin with more vegetable broth if needed. Warning: it will look like baby diarrhea... but it smells divine.
  
• Warm and serve with yummy crusty whole grain bread. Barry had the idea of cubing ham to put in each bowl, too - for all those guys out there who don't think you've really eaten a meal unless you've had animal protein. I have to hand it to him, though, it was a tasty idea.
• This made a giant pot - about 4 gallons of soup. You'd want to scale it back, unless you too were trying to feed and warm a family crew of 6-10 hungry workers over a couple of days.
  

In all, it was a good Thanksgiving. We spent Saturday and Monday at Mom and Dad's helping them replace the siding on their house. We made some serious progress, despite the cold. It's looking great. At one point, we were able to visit with my uncle from Idaho, who stopped by with Grandma Peterson. On Sunday, we went up to Sylvan Lake to visit extended family on the Schmale side. My uncle from Toronto and cousins from Vancouver were there, and we don't see them often. And the bunch of us who are scattered around Alberta still don't get together that often, either. So, you know, good food + good company = good times.

So I'm thankful. Thankful for sanity activities, like soup-making when I'm knowingly putting off overdue marking and late university work. Thankful for a family that has as much fun working together as playing together. Thankful for harvest and plenty (especially pumpkin pie with whip cream). Thankful to be a Canadian who lives close enough to the border to enjoy two Thanksgivings. And I'm thankful for memories... and the holidays that help us make those memories.

Imagination

YAY! I was one of the first to have my name drawn for picking the MUSIC topic for our presentations. I'm glad because I was really hoping to get 'Imagination'. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and I while I rated myself quite high in the imagination area on our personal inventories, I've begun to question that. I'm wondering a lot lately about whether imagination means that something has to be original. I've been quite heavily involved in many traditionally 'creative' endeavors because of my personal interests in the arts. For example, I'm an art minor who dabbles in small projects and teaching private lessons. I've also been quite involved with theatre, most recently directing a couple high school musical productions.

BUT here's the thing... when I draw or paint or create any other piece of art, I don't just create something out of my own head. I research. I copy. I even trace sometimes. I have to see something literally before I can draw it. I need a model of sorts. Does that mean I'm plagiarizing? I won't copy an entire piece, but if I need a bird or a face as a part of my composition, I find one that I can work from. Do I lack originality or imagination?

When I direct a play, I watch youtube clips and movie versions and take things that I like from there. (The slow motion punch in Bye Bye Birdie and some of the lines from the movie that I added to the script of Grease come to mind.) Yet I still feel like the end result is my vision, and of course, my students always do it better because they're just, well...mine. But that sentiment illustrates exactly the problem with how difficult it can be to detach ourselves from our own work and accurately gauge imaginative thought and work. Does imagination mean that I have dreamt up something new and groundbreaking, or is enough to be 'inspired' (in large or small measure) by something else? This is especially thought-provoking for me when I try to consider all the implications brought on by the information age. I see many students who think their work is original when they've blatantly copied. I think our definitions of original are built on some culturally shifting sand.

Moreover, I sometimes wonder if the idea of original thought or idea is a fallacy anyway. I think even when it seems something is completely our own, really it's an amalgam of subconscious influences and outside prompts, with perhaps a unique tweak that is original. I wouldn't mind exploring this as I work on this presentation. I know I will concentrate on the use of prompts to get our imaginations going because I love using them in the classroom and when I personally feel creatively stagnant.

face painting

So as might be expected with my passion for Halloween and dressing up, I have developed a love for and some skill with face painting. This past week was a great opportunity to express myself and be creative in that arena because our school's student council put on a big spirit week.

Each day was devoted to some fun school spirit boosting activity, and every day was blue and white day. On Monday, we started decorating our classrooms for a contest. On Tuesday, the cafeteria served blue and white fare. On Wednesday, third block classes dressed their teachers in another contest. (Mine made me into a giant hall pass - a new thing at our school, so it was funny in a very timely way.) On Thursday we were supposed to paint our faces, and Friday was dubbed "Extreme Blue and White Day." It's no surprise that these last two days were my favorite.

I found it interesting during a week where I wasn't feeling well, was completely exhausted, and was characteristically managing to procrastinate my marking and coursework, I mustered the energy and time to take part in spirit week with such gusto. I think it's because creative activity, while it is definitely hard work is an energizing endeavor. It's almost a physics given... a momentum gaining action or a friction-building. It's electric. It expends energy to create energy. At any rate, while not all creative activities produce it, there are definitely some that I get a real charge from... and that was needed this week.

Two Hours

We were assigned the task last week of taking at least two hours to devote to an activity about which we are passionate and that would force us to be creative. I immediately asked about the possibility of dividing the two hours into two activities. My reasoning for this was that one of my favorite weekend activities is to go lane swimming.

My husband and I like to go on a Sunday afternoon to the Max Bell and spend about hour in the pool. We usually do 80-100 laps. It’s great exercise. It’s also something we enjoy together, which is important because with his job, we don’t get a lot of ‘couple time’. (I especially like that it’s one of the few sports that he doesn’t have an advantage in – he’s a extremely fast runner and a strong guy who lifts weights daily. Generally, I’m left in his dust, but in a pool, I can return the favor and leave him in my wake. This is petty, I know, but it’s real nonetheless.) More relevant to this course, lane swim has always (well, ever since I began competitive swimming at nine-years-old) been the most mind-clearing activity I can do. I can lose track of time. I can think deeply, or I can completely zone out and think of nothing. It’s when I’m most mentally relaxed – besides, perhaps, when I’m in a deep sleep.

As I explained in a paper for another course, “on a very interesting level, I have a strong communication with water. I have never felt afraid of water. Family legend holds that the natal nurses used me for bathing demonstrations for all the new moms because I loved the water, unlike most newborns. My mom used to bath me to calm me. As I grew, I was a natural swimmer; when my mom finally put me in lessons, I skipped several levels. I swam competitively, and I trained and worked as a lifeguard for several years, also teaching lessons and coaching swim club. I often dream of water… I’ve always felt at home in water. If I were classified in the archaic elements, I’d be water. [Water itself has become a metaphor] for feeling connected and capable."

The second thing I did this week for the other hour (okay, admittedly I may have gotten carried away and spent a little more time than that) was deciding on and planning for this year’s Halloween costume. Halloween is arguably my favorite holiday season. I have a blast every year decorating my classroom and my house, but my favorite Halloween activity (besides munching those mini chocolate bars) is dressing up. I love doing something creative and creepy. This year, I have a headless ghoul planned.

Some past costumes include…

Vampire (2007)

Hockey Player (2008)

Course Connections

This may be a bit of a cheat entry, but I'm finding that some of the topics and, certainly, most of my thoughts in this course are intersecting with those from my other course. The following was my response to the second discussion question this week. It really related to some of the things we discussed as we debated what is and is not creative, specifically the notions of reproductions losing their creative appeal or maintaining an aesthetic arrest (love that term).

Q: Sturken references Walter Benjamin who claims that "[...]the meaning of an original image changes when it is reproduced" (p.124). It is easy to assume that something is "lost in translation" when an image is reproduced, but it's possible to gain something as well. How can the reproduction of images, a new literacy, be beneficial?

I think my almost immediate reaction to this is to think of Andy Warhol. I find his life and work fascinating. His most famous pieces (Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles and 100 Dollar Bills) are examples of a reproduced image (not his own original design), which is simply and literally reproduced within the creation of a single piece of art. It sounds hokey and shallow, but that act of reproduction was an artistic act for him and, ultimately, for our society. (Whether you think it was good art is a moot point; it is accepted as art.) It was the birth of pop art, and I think it’s fascinating. His work was meant to make us stop and think about our commercialized world; interestingly, I think he even intended that we celebrate the democracy of it.

His explanation (found in his 1975 publication, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again ): “What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.”

I appreciate that in this question, image reproduction was called a new literacy. I think of the mass produced t-shirts that our school makes to sell for sporting events. The images on those shirts are going to hold a powerful personal, maybe even political, meaning for students in our school. Some will identify with school pride or ‘spirit’; others will connect with more negative feelings, like a dislike for everything that is saccharine and fake about high school and the popular crowd. There’s no doubt, though, that a student is ‘reading’ that image in a unique way because it is common in their world.

I know this next comment might be a slight oversimplification, but here goes anyway…

I can’t afford an original. But I have a Picasso print, purchased with frame from Ikea, in my workroom. I’m glad that there are cheap reprints of important visuals. I have Van Gogh and Seurat posters stapled to the walls of my classroom (not far from a giant “The Simpsons” poster with all the characters from any episode gathered together). We had a discussion in my creativity class about whether if something’s reproduced, it loses its merit as a creative piece. I like to think not. Just because something becomes iconic (and I loved the distinction in our readings between iconic and symbolic – I may use that in my class), it doesn’t lose its aesthetic value. Often, it has simply become more accessible for mass scrutiny, enjoyment, and interpretation.

I think we have to remember with any type of communication (verbal, written, visual) we only ever have control of one half of the communication – either we’re communicating or we’re ‘getting’ /interpreting the communication. Once we’ve spoken, written, or visually represented something and sent it out into the world, the objectification and subjectification (a word?) of it is beyond our control. It may speak to people or it may not, and what it says will depend more on their perceptions than anything else. So to have someone reproduce your idea in a way that alters it, adds dimension to the original idea. We have new perspective, we think about our perspectives, we become familiar with the image or symbol or icon. I think this familiarity in itself is quite beneficial. I’m happy that so many people are familiar with “The Scream” in whatever incarnation they found it. Hopefully, they felt connected because of the shared sentiment because we probably don’t feel connected often enough.

Reading II - M.U.S.I.C. article

Another reading I completed for this week's class was Dr. Henry's article, "Enhancing Creativity with M.U.S.I.C.", based on the five areas he discovered that are integral to creative activity. I was especially glad for the practical suggestions to teachers for how to use the model, for how to foster and enhance creativity in the classroom and within their students.

Interestingly, I often feel that much of what I read and study in the M.Ed. is not based in practical usage. It exists only in the realm of theoretical constructs, or most discouragingly, as simply unfavorable critique of current structures and systems. It was refreshing to have an academic article that addressed an issue in a more head-on and practical way, while still having its basic underpinnings in educational theory and forward momentum.

Reading - Out of Our Minds

I'm feeling a little bogged by my reading load. I am doing the media literacies course, as well, so I've had quite a few different things to read the last while, and to be honest, they're starting to run together in my head, especially since I have troubles being truly captivated by anything that's nonfiction. Fiction is my spoonful of sugar to help the message go down, I guess.

I picked up the Ken Robbins book and manage a few pages of that each evening. Not surprisingly (I've seen and been impressed by a few different presentations/talks by Robbins), I have found that many of his ideas and work speak to me and my experiences and thoughts on the subject of fostering creativity, specifically in education...which means a shift in current educational practice. And I've really only made it through the introduction!

A few key things I've underlined so far:

• "Creativity can be developed, but it must be done sensitively and well."
• "Many people have very deep anxieties about education. It's one of those issues like religion, politics or money that get among us."
• "Human culture is as rich and diverse as it is because human intelligence is so complex and dynamic."
• "Creativity is not a purely intellectual process. It is enriched by other capacities and in particular by feelings, intuition and by a playful imagination."
• "Creative insights often occur by making connections between ideas or experiences that were previously unconnected. Just as intelligence in a single mind is interactive, creativity is often interdisciplinary."

These are just little 'nuggets', not necessarily key, tethering principles. When I have more time, I'll expand on the overarching ideas that are particularly resonating.

Assessment

The M.U.S.I.C. assessments completed in class were quite interesting. I especially like that we got to discuss with each other about it. So often, you complete a survey or an interest inventory or something of the like in a class and then just move on, like the significance of it all is immediately available and needs no further analysis.

I think that for most of us, we were not surprised by the areas that were our weakest or our strongest. I think on some levels, we know ourselves quite well, but we do need to regularly reexamine to ask whether we like ourselves that way. (I don't mean that in a self-loathing way...just that personal inventory of any aspect of ourselves is only useful with the inherent question of, "Am I okay with that?"

For example, I've known since I was in high school that I wanted to be a published author. I remember that when they 'presented' the grads after the ceremony, they read little blurbs about us, which included our future plans and goals. We wrote them ourselves, and some were blatantly silly just to fly in the face of the seriousness of the occasion. Mine wasn't. I wrote that I would be a NY Times bestselling author. The teacher who read the blurbs (my English teacher, interestingly enough) had no qualms about reading anyones plans, silly or not...except mine. He just didn't read it, and when I half-jokingly asked him about it later, he just shrugged.

Anyway, sob story aside, I knew that I wanted to do that. I also knew I was scared to death of it. If I'd done this inventory five years ago, ten years after high school graduation, I would have likely scored lower in courage, BUT more importantly, I would have been okay with that. I didn't feel a pressing need to change that about myself and go after that goal just yet. Today, however, this has changed. This past spring, something finally clicked, and I feel like now is my season to overcome this and to get the stick-to-itness that I'll need.

I'm hoping that will be one of the many things I might build on through this course. Moreover, I'm still a teacher, so I'm wanting to learn the skill of helping my students with the same hang-ups or any other impediments to their creative success.

Procreation

I've been thinking a bit about just the word creativity. I found the dictionary definition (from dictionary.com) interesting, especially the third one.

1.	the state or quality of being creative.

2.	the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts.

3.	the process by which one utilizes creative ability: Extensive reading stimulated his creativity.

So, if one analyzes things in terms of the 3rd definition, you could argue that one could be creative, but not have creativity if that ability is not actually in use. I like this idea. It's a little like love and other positive, powerful forces for good. You could have them, but they aren't actually effective unless they're being exercised. I think about this often when it comes to light. Technically, the antithesis to light is not, in fact, darkness as we often think of it (as an entity with it's own properties, or even in the mythical sense, its own powers). Darkness is only an absence of light. So it's the natural state - actually fairly benign, except that it's quite apathetic... and light is the remedy for that apathy. The antithesis of light, then, is actually lack of light.

And the antithesis of creativity is actually just lack of creativity, or perhaps more pointedly, a lack of creation. So I can be a creative person, but if I am not engaged in some kind of creation, I no longer possess creativity. I'm feeling like my reasoning is becoming a little convoluted, but it's making great sense in my head.

The etymology of the word 'creativity' is important. It's interesting to me that it comes from the word 'create' - I love that most words come from verbs. (It should be indicative to us, then, that a state of action or being is of primary concern, not the actual arrival or status - the noun, which is just a byproduct.) From there, I think of the times I have been a part of creating something or have been witness to creation. Some moments, I would argue have been actual moments of (yes, capital-C) Creation.

Anyway, these admittedly random musings about words came from a recent consideration of the idea of procreation. I've been acutely attuned to ideas of procreation for over five years now, as long as my husband and I have been hoping to have a child. I've experienced the longing, even the pressing emotional need, to be a part of that type of creation. I love that we call it procreation. (Like we become 'professionals' by taking part - an amusing take. More likely that it is seen as a good thing... Yikes, I dislike that word "good" there. I've been thinking about this prefix more deeply than that, but it's proving to be difficult to articulate.)

It makes me chuckle to think of the different ways that I am very 'pro' creation. It's more than just the rational objective of preserving our species (and here I refer to all kind of creation, procreation, even creativity). It's about a psychological need, an impulse, an irrational desire that leads us to our greatest potential for passion, love, suffering, growth, and disappointment. It it the stuff of life. It is light, illuminating our dark places. It's antithesis is not some super-scary thing; it's just apathy, a lack of creation.

We do not 'see' or experience creativity, then, without the illumination of creation.

Feet on the Path

In Wednesday's class, there was some discussion about what qualifies as creativity...can a person who is creating something (even skillfully doing so) be devoid of creativity?

This made me think a great deal about some of the TED talks I've been watching with some of my students. We focused on a series with the common theme of "Serious Play" and with a focus on design. In particular, there was one given by legendary graphic designer Paula Scher (famous for the citibank logo and her work with typography-heavy posters and buildings). Her contention is that our creative work is done when we do play (fitting with the running theme of the presentations), but that there's a difference between 'serious' play and 'solemn' play. She refers to an essay by Russell Baker on the contrasts between these two. Children are serious when they play, adults are often solemn. Serious play involves gambling; solemnity is safer and reserved. (Jogging is solemn; poker is serious.) My favorite: "Going to educational conferences to tell you anything about the future is solemn; taking a long walk by yourself during which you devise a fool-proof scheme for robbing Tiffany's is serious."

Anyway, Scher goes on to display and discuss her work, especially the four times she considered it to be serious, rather than solemn. Her solemn work was very successful, very beautiful and very in demand, but she didn't feel as rewarded by it. The main element she felt was important in serious play/design was not knowing what you were doing because it was a new or unique challenge. Then you become so immersed in the project, no other project exists for you.

I thought of her presentation when it was discussed in class the idea of being skilled but not creative. Of the examples presented and from the notes/schools of thought, it seemed to me that the common element in true creativity is challenge - doing something that makes you stretch makes you 'think outside the box', as the cliche goes. Creativity makes you a little (or a lot) uncomfortable, I think because it is a process of growing.