Category: Daily creativity

“Something fun”

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My daughter loves to tell me everyday when we get home that she wants to do “something fun”. I am not in the least surprised that hanging out with me while I am half present in her activity and half doing housework, cooking dinner, and whatever else comes up each day, is not what she considers fun. Yesterday after a fun trip to the zoo, lunch with the elephants and an hour drive to encourage nap time, I found myself wanting to do “something fun” with her. It was Saturday after all and we can’t do housework all the time can we? Suddenly, I remembered that our dogs are happy new owners of two very large dog beds which arrived in two very large boxes!!!

I have been saving some Pinterest ideas on cardboard play houses specifically for a time when a big box and some free time landed on our door step. Here was my chance. Two year old in tow, I asked her ” Do you want to make a play house for you and Bear?” to which she delightfully answered “Yea!” I must confess that when I said “lets make a play house”, she heard “go find toys to play with in a box” and I thought “I get to create with cardboard, scissors and tape!” Luckily, we were both right.

We started by looking at the two boxes and she chose the one she liked the best. As I started to cut into the box she became interested in the process. We drew on the outside where the door and windows were going to go. With each step, she had to test out the inside of the play house, while I consulted Pinterest. We also evaluated what the house needed. First and foremost, a door and some more light. We cut out extra windows everywhere! Second, the house needed some exterior decor. While I wasn’t in the mood to get out the paint, I was more then happy to tear up tape so that the windows and door got some trim. We agreed that the house needed something fresh and added a flower box and some pipe cleaner flowers under the window. Lastly, we grabbed some battery powered string lights from another adventure and strung them through the house for a bit more light.

I can proudly say that my daughter and her bear have now spent a couple of hours in and out of the play house. Bear specifically takes a lot of naps in there!

IMG_2008I enjoyed this activity with my kiddo so much. We created something new from something old. We created a space for her to play with her bear. I spent time with her fully present and excited to use my hands and my years of experience.

While I am still trying to pinpoint the true meaning of the word creativity, I really enjoyed the “doing” yesterday. Heres what I experienced: Creativity for me is active, it helps that I had multiple colors of tape and some pipe cleaners around the house to spruce up our playhouse, but those weren’t required for us to start. I had an idea, I did a little bit of research on Pinterest, and we just started. There were failures, for example,  I didn’t cut the side panels of the roof into perfect triangles. Instead we worked around our challenges until they became essential features of our design;  roof had to be a bit higher, and the holes in the roof were the perfect place to string the lights! Is the house perfect? No way! Will I build another? Oh yea!  Creativity is an iterative process. Yesterday we solved our problem of doing “something fun” with this iteration of play house. Today we will play in and around that playhouse. Maybe we will learn more about cardboard doors that we will keep in mind for next time we break out a box and scissors.

How long with the playhouse stay in the middle of the kitchen? Probably not as long as the dog beds, at least until something else fun comes along!IMG_2019

What is Creativity?

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It’s been a while since I last posted. Recently, I have been pulled by nature to observe its beauty. This is part of my inspiration and part of my inquiry. Observing what is around me and what I am drawn to has started me thinking. Thinking has led to questions of self, such as, how do I define myself, where do I want to direct my focus? Inevitably this leads me back to creativity. So in my free time, I have been doing some research around what is creativity, what are its origins, what makes it so special? 

This has really started me questioning creativity, how I use the word, practice creativity and define or hold myself to a creative standard. Am I actually “creative”or am I consistently using others ideas and just working them to fit my need in a more “creative” way? I have to admit, I haven’t found my answers yet. I am not ready to share my manifesto on creativity. For now I am willing to share my process: here are some of the thoughts/ ideas/ questions about creativity that I am mulling over:

Questions I have about creativity:

  1. What about the idea of creativity  am I so drawn to and why do I want to define myself by this noun?
  2. How do you define that something you did was creative?
  3. Why is creativity most often perceived as related to art?
  4. Isn’t the scientific method is documented process of creativity?
  5. If I make a new recipe based off of similar ones I’ve read is that “creating something new”, if not, then is my new recipe not creative?
  6. If there is a limit to what can be created, why is the idea of being creative so exciting/ new business skill so popular?
  7. How is size or scale of output related to creativity?
  8. If I value creativity so much, what am I creating?

Ideas about creativity that I am grappling with:

  1. Creativity is only when you truly create something that has never ever been created before.
  2. Having access to or buying art/craft supplies enables creativity.
  3. Creativity is a special skill or talent that comes naturally to some and others just can’t do it.
  4. Groups can come up with some of the most creative ideas during activities like brainstorming.
  5. Creativity is messy.
  6. Creativity is best when the outcome is simple.

Ideas about creativity that resonate with me:

  1. Creativity is problem solving with the intent of coming out with a new or different answer.
  2. Creativity is not magic, there are no ah ha moments.
  3. Ideas happen all the time. Creativity comes when you act on that idea.
  4. Creativity is a process filled with the constant cycle of trying, failing, ask more questions, research, try again….
  5. Everybody’s a critic, to be truly creative, you must persist.
  6. Everyone is creative.

The more I read, the less answers I have. What I do know is that I am still drawn to the idea of creativity. I know that there is something special to creativity, and that we all have the potential to be creative. I know that there is intent and action in creativity.  I want to continue this exploration and I plan on sharing it here. Potentially I will answer my own questions or create more. Potentiallly this is my creation space…. More Soon.

Creativity in my “normal” life

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After being a theater major in college and post grad, I was convinced that if I wasn’t doing theater or something “Artsy” that I wasn’t being creative. Fast forward almost 10 years, I haven’t done one bit of theater since I left grad school, so where does that leave me? Forced to recognize all of the ways that I am being creative while living a “normal” life.

At various times I have been creative in very specific areas of said normal life. For example, one year for Christmas my husband and I wanted to share our yummy recipes with our friends and family and decided to make them spice mixes with recipe cards. This gift idea turned into a 3 year company that we blended, bottled and sold mixed spices at our local farmers markets. The creative parts were fun. For us creativity came while answering all of the questions:

  • What kind of bottle should we sell our spices in?
  • What really is a Cajun spice?
  • How many times are we going to eat read beans and rice to get the flavors right?
  • What should our logo be?
  • How do you pack the car with all of the things you need to set up a temporary shop?
  • How do you sample spices?
  • Should we sell online?

And on and on and on. Do all of these sound like questions that any new business owner might ask? I hope so, building a business is creating something that didn’t exist before. Yes there have been and continue to be many spice companies in the world, none were ours. To create something is a process. Kevin Ashton says “Creating is not magic, but work” When we started creating with food and spices we accidentally created a business. This company lasted 3 years before we got bored. Blending, bottling and selling became a simple, yet an uninteresting process. We still love cooking yummy foods and now we have such a better understanding of how to whip a meal together and balance the flavors, the knowledge and experience we learned allows us to create new meals easier.

Not every creative adventure in my “normal” life has turned into a business, many have been fun ways to spend time with friends and family. Notably, we don’t host many parties but we are known for our annual pumpkin carving party. I love this party, not only because I think Halloween is the best holiday of the year, it is the one time a year I challenge all of my friends to create in the form of carving pumpkins with sharp things! Every year someone “forgets to bring a pumpkin”, or says ” I’m not the creative type” and of course this is a challenge to me. I am prepared for these excuses and I always buy a few extra pumpkins, we have amassed a carving knife collection of all shapes and sizes and multiple years in a row I have gone down the halloween aisle at my local store to get the discounted carving kits for next year. So when someone shows up with an excuse, they are quickly met with all of the tools they need to carve a pumpkin. There have been some epic pumpkins, and there have been some that you have to squint and turn you head sideways to figure out what the carver had intended. In all cases we have a fun party where everyone pushed themselves to create something.

My creativity isn’t limited to defined projects. A few months ago I was proud when I identified that my daughter was struggling with our day to day because she doesn’t have all of the details I have in my brain. Several art sessions later we now have a system of creating a weekly calendar where we draw out what is going to happen for the week. She loves this, not only can I tell her what I know we are going to do or who is going to visit, she can help me fill in the activity times by telling me what she wants to do.  In this way we create our week plan together.

I enjoy my creativity most when it starts as an idea, and it takes shape through research, conversations, attempts and fails. Currently, I am mulling over a costume idea for my 2 year old. I haven’t really begun to dig in yet. I have an idea – its an animal. I have done some online research of what it looks like. I have sketched some ideas. I am identifying my constraints. I cannot say if I will go through with this idea yet, at the same time I love having an idea percolate.

Without theater, I no longer have a specific space and time built into what I do everyday, I am still able to use my creativity skills. My creativity permeates various facets of what I do from working to being a mom and spending time with friends and family.  My creativity isn’t something that just happens, I have to try to create something new. So while I agree with Ashton, creativity is work, it is also the way of working that I enjoy most in my “normal” life.