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.