On being creative

I’d like to say a bit about creativity today.

*Yawn* not another one…..

Yes, a lot is being said about creativity these days and it seems that everybody is now calling themselves “creatives”, artisans and even artists.

Let’s look at this:

Creativity as defined by our good friend Wikipedia:

Creativity refers to the invention or origination of any new thing (a product, solution, artwork, literary work, joke, etc.) that has value. "New" may refer to the individual creator or the society or domain within which novelty occurs. "Valuable", similarly, may be defined in a variety of ways.

(This is actually a very insightful article.  Read it when you have a day free)

And artisan:

An artisan or artizan (from Italian: artigiano) or craftsman (craftsperson)^[1] is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewelry, household items, and tools or even machines such as the handmade devices of a watchmaker. An artisan is therefore a person engaged in or occupied by the practice of a craft, who may through experience and talent reach the expressive levels of an art in their work and what they create.

OK, so let’s just get this out of the way:  you can’t be an artisanal anything-you-want-to-put-the-word-to.  Being an artisan has to do with making something by hand and/or simple tools.  But the subject is not “artisan” – not today, at least.

Let’s look at Wikipedia’s delineation:

The invention/origination of any new thing that has value.

Invention:           creation

                         Discovery

                         Development

                         Brainchild

                         Baby

Origination:        Beginning

                         Start

                         Inauguration

                         Initiation

                         commencing

New:                  novel

                         New-fangled

                         Original

                         Innovative

                         Fresh

                         Different

                         First-hand

                               

Value:                worth

                         Price

                         Cost

                         Charge

                         Rate

                         Importance

                         Significance

                         Usefulness

                         Consequence

                         Meaning

                         Merit

Therefore we can say that creativity is the beginning of an original thing that has significance. 

Then also: creativity does not apply when you are copying another person’s work. That’s called C O P Y I N G and has no creativity involved.  A copier machine is a copier machine not a creativity machine.  That is all.

Creativity – to me, is the deep-seated need to make something.  I have referred before to the book “Country Living Crafting a Business" and would now like to tell you about the life-changing moment that this book brought to my life.  In the article about her, one of the featured artists said: “….’make something, make something….”.  At the moment I read that, I had my pivotal moment.  

A big flashing neon light wrote in my brain: “That’s what I’ve been feeling all my life”.  

And that was also the moment I came to realise that there is indeed a talent in me, no matter what the “voices in my head” (read: my mother) had been saying all these years.  

Look, I’ve always drawn, painted, danced, sewed, crocheted…heck, I even studied Drama for five minutes.  I firmly believe that the reason why I am in the position I am today is the way I was brought up.  As the youngest of five, I’ve always had things taken out of my hands “you can’t do that, you’re too small” or “give me that, you’ll just hurt yourself” and the worst “you’re doing it wrong, you’re stupid”.  

You can say what you want, but anybody that’s told things like that every day of their life will eventually believe they cannot do anything, will never achieve anything and will – like me, become a “self-saboteur”.  

As a parent, I’ve come to realise that whatever we press onto our children they will believe of themselves.  

And from my own experience I’ve also learned that this type of “learned behaviour” is very hard to un-learn.  Although I am aware of my problem of being prone to sabotaging myself, I still do it.  

And do it often.  

But the big thing here is that I now know that the voice in me saying “make something, make something” is my creativity speaking.  

And now I also know to at least try to not shoot myself in the foot on every turn, as my hungry voice needs to be fed and I need to continue on this path I have taken.