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Lines of Creativity

            Creativity has been a large part of my life.  I am now pursuing a career in Fine Art because of my growing love for art.  When I was very young, coloring and doodling were some of my favorite things to do.  I wore the same little dress every day and carried my favorite stuffed animal with me everywhere I went.  It was very important to have all the right things to create a masterpiece on paper: a comfortable dress with matching socks, Minnie Mouse with her curled up whiskers, and an orderly box of well loved crayons.  I remember spending long hours on this love of mine.

            Growing up with two brothers that did “boy things” together gave me lots of time alone.  I would imagine talking to bugs and daydream under the magnolia tree in my front yard.  Portraits of caterpillars and detailed rainbows covered my papers.  Inspiration was in every part of my environment.  My masterpieces would impress even my rough and tough brothers.  Occasionally they would join me at a tea party with their own boxes of crayons to color. 

            My mother would always serve us our snacks but never wanted to sit down and color.  There was only one time I persuaded her to sit with me and draw; it was then I discovered why she had never sat with me before.  It seemed simple at six years old to come up with colorful pictures and I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t as creative as I.  She would laugh at her stick people and then walk away from the table.  I wondered why she could make time to cook, clean, help with homework, entertain guests, and take care of us, but she never wanted to color.

            As I grew older, I continued sketching in books and doodling.  Drawing was still a passion of mine, but my life became very busy.  Taking care of my family was all I had time for.  I didn’t think anything I was doing was creative anymore and I started to realize what my mother had gone through for so many years. 

            Now I am a mother and as I sit next to my daughter it is also hard for me not to think about taking care of the house.  How could I sit and color with her when there was so much to be done.  I lost my ambition and passion for creativity.  Even my everyday rituals were becoming tedious and boring.  I found myself walking in my mother’s shoes, wondering how to make more time to draw more than just stick people. 

            In 2003, I started working on my illustration degree hoping that the fine arts program would teach me how to be creative.  So far I’ve learned how to draw, but not where the ideas come from.  I’ve wondered how I lost my ability to see those ideas that swarmed my head as a child.  I need to find out why in order to make it in this career.  My question is: What can be done to develop adult creativity? 

            In order to answer this question, I researched how to train myself to think creatively.  I found an article by author Michael Michalko that explains, “Creating new ideas means challenging all assumptions and thinking productively by looking at things in as many different ways as possible” (52).  I was very interested to learn that there was a difference between producing ideas and reproducing other people’s ideas differently.  Producing ideas is innovation or creating something unique that no one else has ever done.  Reproducing ideas is using someone else’s concept to create your own work of art.

            I compared these differences to my college fine arts class.  I was required to reproduce a sketch by Renoir to learn his ways of drawing line.  This was the only research that I had done regarding creativity in college to this point.  When I drew on my own paper, I was reproducing his line, not mine.  I learned from this article that I could find my own lines by drawing more than what I see or by simply drawing differently than what Renoir had done.  To produce original work, I need to draw what I feel, not just what I see.  Learning these two differences were processes to being creative. 

            I also learned that I needed to break my habits and patterns of thinking.  The drawing methods that I have been taught were methods that had obviously been used before.  I learned how to break the habitual method of reproducing ideas.  For instance, the simple patterns of shading in certain areas on a face to create a two-dimensional look were someone else’s ideas.  I need to look at shading in as many different ways as possible in order to come up with a new way to shade.

            There were additional processes mentioned in Michalko’s article.  He referred to many innovators and their processes in small detail but I wanted to know more than just small detail.  I then found an article online by management consultant W.H Weiss called, “Coming Up with Good Ideas.”  The main focus of his article was on the business end of developing creativity. 

            I learned from this article that an important process in acquiring adult creativity is having uninterrupted concentration.  Weiss notes “Concentration is an excellent way of encouraging creativity while also better managing time” (9).   For me, this would require setting aside a block of time every day to work on my interests.  I would become more creative if I could concentrate on what I was doing without having to stop an argument between my children or cooking a meal for my husband.  If I make more time to be creative, I will produce more art; in turn, I will have a more impressive portfolio to show an employer.  Although I currently have a portfolio ready, I don’t feel as though each piece had any real uninterrupted time spent on them. 

            What I needed to know next was how to make that time.  I used my interview to answer that question.  One of the first art classes I took was Basic Drawing.  My professor was Mr. Dennis Guastella—a very open minded, forward thinking person.  He has a love for art and for his students.  I was familiar with his art from slides that he had shown us in class.  He created unique art, worked full time, and made time to cook every night for his family.

            I was relieved to hear Mr. Guastella refer to adults as being more creative because of their life experience.  I know that I’m experienced at being a mother and wife; I need to now become an experienced artist.  In order to do that, I need to put less time into my family and more time into my interests.  After acquiring these abilities, I can then begin to put some time back into cooking a meal.

            One of the questions I asked Mr. Guastella was: Should we surround ourselves with higher intelligence?  He rephrased my question and answered with, “We should not surround ourselves with people of higher intelligence but people with heart; people who are knowledgeable with a caring heart, not just knowledgeable.”  Surrounding myself with people who have “like minds” would also help.  Those who cared about creativity!  I go through each day completing the same rituals: get up, clean house, go to school, come home, cook dinner, and get ready for bed.  I know most people have to go through that.  I need to dismiss these days once in a while and just spend time with a friend who has my same interests and really cares about what they do and about what I’m doing.  The husband and kids won’t die from this.  Occasionally deleting those rituals of chores and serving can lead to major creativity. 

            I really wanted to find other women that had become experienced in the processes and steps of being creative and carried my same interests.  In my research, I found two particular articles on the author’s processes on specific creations.  Both of the authors were women so I felt I could more easily relate to them.  There aren’t a lot of stay-at-home dads going through college right now that have to rush home and cook dinner.  I felt perhaps a woman would have experienced the same thoughts and stressors as I had while pursuing this field.

            The first article was by a high school art teacher, Candice Nicol.  I was very interested in her first paragraph where she observes:  As a teacher and an artist, I have always been in awe of those students who seem to posses an abundance of creative imagination.  I will assign an art problem and within ten minutes, these creative thinkers will sketch out numerous solutions while the majority of the class is struggling with one idea.  Many give up without working on the problem, and they revert to copying from someone else or from a magazine.  How do we teach students to think creatively? (par. 1) After reading this, I felt like I was sitting in my high school art class again, doodling on the paper trying to come up with something that had to do with what the teacher wanted to see.  My art work at that point was still somewhat imaginative.  Her processes on how to think creatively would have helped me then, but will help me even more now.

            Nicol’s steps of introducing the word associations and thumbnail sketches, the processes for that, and then creating the final product were specific to creative development in art.  First, I take a word or something visual that interested me and create as many small, short sketches that I can think of that related to that word.  Second, I would draw as many ideas as I can—this is the most important and time consuming part.  Finally, after all that, I would be able to produce the end result.  I was happy to know that something so small could turn into something so wonderful.  For example, I saw a dead flower in my yard and turned it into a beautiful drawing where the seeds became tiny winged people working on the wilting petals to help them grow.  I sketched the flower over and over in different ways.  Then, I wrote down as many words as I could come up with that related to that flower.  After about a week, I came up with my idea and the drawing flowed onto the paper rather quickly.

            I couldn’t help but compare these processes to my research rubric.  When I first started this class, I started jumping ahead in the coursepak to figure out how to put this paper together.  I had my sources early so I drew up an outline and was prepared to finish way before the due date.  As I went forward through the classroom writing processes, it seemed as though they were irrelevant because I was already prepared to finish my assignment.  I had always done my homework this way.  Indeed, these processes that I thought could be skipped were actually the most important parts.  If I wanted my research answer to flow onto the paper, I would need to research, listen carefully in class, research more, and annotate a whole bunch.  Instead of just sitting down and writing what I saw from my outline, I would write what I have learned from my research.

            Referring to these processes in art was even more detailed in the second article by award winning artist Holly Hope Banks.  The best thing about this article was how much I could relate to it as a painter.  There was a “gem” of a comment made that helped me understand what adult creativity stems from, specifically in art.  Banks explains, “…an artist begins with a desire to express something” (par.3).  After thinking about this, I realized my desire is to express my love for drawing and painting.  Now that I know what to express, I need to know how to express it.

            In Bank’s research on master artist paintings, she discovered how the painters expressed their final product.  She emphasized how each tiny part of every painting came about: with study, research, and sketches—tons of sketches.  I learned that it takes more effort planning and coming up with ideas than the time it takes to paint the picture.  My paintings had always started with sitting down with paint and canvas and recreating exactly what I saw.  I had never thought to research what I was looking at or how I could paint it differently or uniquely.  In order to be good at what I do and work productively, creating innovative works of art, a lot of study and research was needed.  I found these to be the key elements to the process of creative development.

            A final elemental process I learned from Banks was what I’ve heard several times throughout the years I’ve been attending College.  She mentions, “Leave the uncompleted painting for at least a few weeks and then try to work on it again with a fresh eye” (par. 12).  I would need to walk away from what I’m doing and then come back to continue working.  Alterations could be the death of a piece of art, research, or any project that takes a lot of time to accomplish.  If changes need to be made to any type of work, walking away for a while will have given me time to think about making more intelligent changes, rather than making a spur of the moment decision.

            At this point in my research, I felt like I had learned how to develop creativity.  After reading through my resources, I realized the only things I found that would hinder my creativity were not finding time for creativity and not surrounding myself with other creative people.  There were many articles on adult creativity that had too much jargon in them, but referenced aspects of my life regarding hindering adult creativity.  They mainly referenced depression and the link between madness and creativity. 

            Rummaging through many sources on these subjects, I found one with a title that jumped out at me.  In the online magazine Self help 4 Life, psychologist Douglas Eby’s article entitled Depression, Women and Creativity should have had my name in parentheses after it.  Eby discussed how women’s depression stifles their creative ability, which is often brought on in the social context.  At a young age, women are often negatively affected by peers, teachers, and gender role responsibilities.  He states, “In response, she stifles her creativity…perhaps the most insidious and common manifestation of repressed creativity in women is depression” (par. 3).  I’ve never been clinically diagnosed with depression, but then, I’ve never seen a doctor about my thoughts. 

            I have found in my research that depression can either help you become an artist or hinder your abilities.  The deep feelings that culminate during this disorder can create a bleak imagination of thoughts and impressions.  During the time before entering college, these things became prevalent.  For me, I felt as if even painting a flower was boring.  It wouldn’t turn out right, so why bother painting at all?  On a daily level, rituals that never bothered me before became a struggle. 

            I wasn’t going to be one of those artists that produced art while I was in this state.  In order to be creative, I would need to make an environment where I would be happy.  By surrounding myself with creative people, taking time for my interests, and seriously researching even the tiniest ideas, I would be doing things that help develop adult creativity—hence, my happy environment. 

            In regards to the link between madness and creativity, Eby mentions author Kay Redfeild Jamison, who refers to depression as a disease and notes, “To assume that such diseases usually promote artistic talent wrongly reinforces simplistic notions of the “mad genius” ” (qtd. in Eby, par. 2).  Some artists are considered “mad geniuses” because of their state of mind during their time of creativity.  This quote linked me to other artists who are unable to be creative because of their depression; yet, they were assumed to have those talents because of their artist label.  It’s hard to distinguish between the depressed “mad geniuses” and the manic depressive person.  We can’t assume that because a person is manic or “mad” that they should be creative or “genius”.

            Before reading Eby’s article I had came across a journal by author Maureen Neihart.  After learning about the assumptions of depression, it was easier to comprehend this journal because I understand depressive effects more.  The artists noted were those with urges to create during their personal suffering.  This time in their lives helped induce their creativity.  Neihart gives an extensive list in Table 1 entitled Eminent Creative People with Probable Mood Disorders (adapted from Jamison, Panter et al., and Rothenberg. 48).  Historically, there are many famous “mad” people and I was amazed at the names on this list. 

            From Vincent Van Gogh to Edgar Allan Poe to William Shakespeare; these people had some form of depressive disorder.  After reading some of their thoughts, it was sometimes hard to distinguish if they were madly depressed or just oddly genius.  Some of the processes of creativity come from moods which are linked with madness and depression.  I discovered some of my thoughts were the same as some of these “mad geniuses”.  This was why I found it hard to tell whether a few of those people were “mad” at all.  Al beit, they were the one’s whose depression spurred creativity, unlike mine.

            My research has taught me the importance of these little things.  I realize now that every detail in life requires creativity.  There are steps to developing adult creativity that include processes for these details.  I need to practice these processes because they are crucial to creative attainment.  My feelings, surroundings, and abilities can either hinder or enhance my output.  It is important for me now to control these things in order to be productive. 

            Producing innovative ideas will require me to exhaust all rational thoughts and then move forward through controlling my irrational discoveries—or “mad genius” moments (in my happy place, of course)!  I will need to be more open to different ways of doing things and never dismiss any ideas.  I will benefit from becoming more in tune to my interests and trying not to over-analyze everything.  With these things in mind, I know I will be able to develop my adult creativity.

Works Cited

Banks, Holly Hope. “An Artistic Imagination.” American Artist 65.711 (Oct 2001): 32.      Expanded Academic ASAP. Washtenaw Community College.  22 Feb. 2006  <http://find.galegroup.com>.

Eby, Douglas. “Depression, Women and Creativity.” Selfhelp4Life 29 May 1998. 22 Feb.   2006 <http://selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/women/depress>.

Guastella, Dennis. Personal Interview. 14 Feb. 2006.

Michalko, Michael. “From Bright Ideas to Right Ideas: Capturing the Creative Spark.”The Futurist 37.5 (Sept.-Oct. 2003): 52-56. Expanded Academic ASAP. Washtenaw Community College.  11 Feb. 2006 <http://find.galegroup.com>.

Neihart, Maureen. “Creativity, the Arts, and Madness.” Roeper Review 21.1 (Sept   1998): 47-50. Expanded Academic ASAP. Washtenaw Community College. 11 Feb 2006 <http://find.galegroup.com>.

Nicol, Candice. “Transforming Ideas: The Design Process (High School).” School Arts 104.3 (Nov. 2004): 37-39. Expanded Academic ASAP.  Washtenaw Community College. 22 Feb. 2006 <http://find.galegroup.com>.

Weiss, W.H. “Coming up with good ideas.” Supervision 66.12 (Dec 2006): 6-9. InfoTrac   OneFile. Washtenaw Community College.  11 Feb. 2006 <http://find.galegroup.com>.