Are You Creative?
This is my sister's store and business.
Sickeningly talented, isn't she? If you click on events, wait for the slide show to load.
Creative.
To be completely and utterly clear . . . the only way I am ever going to use a hot glue gun is to glue Demon Baby's pants to a chair to make him hold still. I am no Martha, that's for sure. When I took the watercolor class, my painting was . . . awash in color. I love it. But . . . he has nothing to fear.
Most of my friends are creative types. Writers, artists, magazine editors, book editors . . . but oddly enough, I don't think of MYSELF as creative. Maybe because I feel like . . . well, that's just the way my brain works. It doesn't seem "hard" most of the time. I just wake up with story ideas. I like to write about people and characters because I am always wondering what makes people tick. But creative? I don't know.
I want to make a film. I feel like that would be creative. But film school will have to wait until Demon Baby goes off to kindergarten--and I am utterly sure he hasn't been expelled. I like to garden. That just feels messy and dirty, but I know there's an element of creativity to it. I knit. But really . . . knit, purl, knit. I enjoy it as a hobby, but creative? I don't make things like those found at this blog. I'm working on this sweater right now.
I love music and can spend hours fine-tuning my playlists on my iPod. I have a piano in my office. Sometimes I play. Badly.
I think, in the end, I have a messy way of looking at the world. Things spill onto other areas. Nothing is neatly defined. If I were a painting itself, I think I would be a Jackson Pollack.
Thoughts? Are you creative?
27 comments:
I'm creative, sometimes. It really depends on what I want to do and how badly I have to have it.
I've done some things that I'm proud of. I've done some things that I threw away before anybody saw it.
I'm a marginal seamstress. I can cut and paste together a few crafts. I can draw a horse. I can find my way around my gimp program. I can play a pretty mean clarinet--if that's considered creative. Lastly, I am a darn good cook--if I must say so myself--except I can't bake bread it always falls.
Let's just say, I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none.
Take care!
Interesting bit of synchronicity. I was on Eric Mayer's blog (he co-writes historical mysteries with his wife Mary Reed) and he was commenting about his fascination with miniatures, and how he made a dollhouse complete with mirrored ballroom and painted a miniature Van Gogh using acrylics. Eric also used to write 'zines and newsletters before he ended up a fulltime freelance writer. So I commented, "You've always been creative, haven't you?"
I'm not remotely "crafty," but I'm creative in music and in writing, I guess. I surprised my wife and father-in-law about 20 years ago when I went out and bought a table saw and started making things like bookcases, Adironack chairs, end tables and a workbench. My father-in-law, acting very puzzled, asked me what plans I'd used for the workbench. I just shrugged and said, "I made it up as I went along."
The Adirondack chairs came from a plan, though. I've since pretty much given up the wood working. I don't quite have the patience for the finishing aspect of it, but I enjoyed building things. It reminded me of writing a novel and watching the pages stack up. Only better, because I could then sit on the chair out on the deck and didn't even give a thought to how I might sell the damned thing.
Hi Muse:
I can't cook. At all. I don't have the patience to spend time making something and watch it get gobbled by four children in under ten minutes.
But, yes, master of none--I can come up with some creative way to make Halloween costumes and so on . . . but it won't resemble how a real seamstress would do it. At all. LOL!
Mark:
Wow . . . interesting, also, because I was into miniatures until well into my twenties, and I still have all my furniture for a dollhouse saved. My plan is when Demon Baby is old enough to understand I will hot glue him to the floor if he wrecks my dollhouse, I will get a new one (mine was 20+ years old and finally fell apart).
E
I guess I'm creative. At least, I consider it a compliment when people tell me I am...
No matter how unique your vision is, though, no matter how talented you are, learning and honing your craft with hard work and persistence usually makes the difference between a hobby and a career. "Ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration..." and all. But you do need that ten percent, I think.
Jude:
Yes, definitely. But a hobbyist can still be creative.
E
Oh, absolutely! I think hobbies are great. I'm all for them.
Hehe. I tell people at work I'm a writer and nursing is just a hobby.
I guess what I was getting at...a hobby, to me, is something you can be creative at when you're, you know, in the mood. If you want something to be a career (or maybe even have a chance at creating something great), though, it requires far more dedication to craft.
Jude:
Definitely.
Part of my presentation on Saturday is always that you can write your laundry list if you want and call it a book. But if you want to SELL, you have to write for an audience. A lot of people can have a hobby of writing, and be writers. But you have to assess what your ultimate goals are . . .
Heh, I think of myself as creative, but then I might be a borderline narcissist so you can't take my word for it. Your sister's site is cool. I had a wedding coordinating business for a little while. But I'm kind of jaded about this whole marriage institution and so...yeah.
I think of myself as logical. (Ohmigosh, did I just hear God laugh?)
But really. In my teaching, I see a problem, or something that needs to be learned, and I figure out the best way to do it. I borrow from everything, use everything I know.
In the end, I think I'm a traditional, old-fashioned piano teacher. It came as some shock to me that I'm considered progressive. And that I can't really point to another teacher who teaches like me.
It's the same in piano and writing. There's so much work and discipline, that it always feels more logical. The bits of creativity are there, but it always feels like the next logical step.
spy:
That's kind of what I was blogging--that to ME, it seems pretty normal.
:-)
E
Hi Zoe:
I love weddings. I don't even have to know the couple. :-)
E
I like how Mark Terry describes it, because I've always drawn a distinction between crafty and creative, I'll claim creative but I'm not the least bit crafty. I don't have the patience for precision in any project that's not wholly my own. I love other people's crafts, I'm just too messy to do it myself.
My mother has tried to get me to sew about a million times, she can create whole outfits, draperies, you name it... I don't have the patience to follow a pattern... not when I can buy clothes for less than it costs to make them... or, you know, beg my mom to make them.
I did do a number of cross stitches, which I also consider crafty, but those I enjoyed for some reason... maybe because at the end of the long project I had something pretty to gift someone, but mostly I enjoyed having something to keep my fingers busy while I daydreamed about a story or something else - stealth daydreaming, you look too busy to be lazy.
Maybe creative is in the way that you define it - to me, fiction writing is creative because there is no blueprint but the one the author creates - we take from life, histories, experiences, but the end result is our own design. Oil painting and free hand drawing I consider creative, because there is no pattern to the way I work with those, again, my own design... now, matting a drawing is another story, I hate straight lines or precision work with rulers or exacto knives... those things belong in the realm of the crafty.
merry:
Good point. Creative vs. crafty.
I'm creative, but not sure how many things I could actually claim as above-average. I can cook, but wouldn't want to do it for a living. It's survival cooking here, nothing fancy. I don't sew, or have any artsy crafts. Writing is the main way I express myself. I do love and enjoy children, so I have a strong connection in that area. I can fish, almost forgot that one. LOL. And I laugh a lot, which hey should count for something. I love music, and love to dance.
ladonna:
Oh! I fish, too. I don't know if it's creative, but I DID end up on the CBS Early Morning Show because of my creativity in that area. They did a whole segment on me and my kids. It's a LONG story. LOL!
E
The only creativity I have is inside my own head. I can't sew, I can't play an instrument well, I can't sing great, I am not at all crafty, I can't grow anything. Sometimes it bums me out. Oh well, I have other talents, I think. ;o)
Hi Ello:
Of course you have other talents. And a GREAT sense of humor!
E
Emily Brightwell said...
I think we're all creative in one way or another. I believe that's the true, 'Human Condition' and the reason so many of us are miserable is that our inate creativity gets ground out of us by the time we hit our early teens. Our true nature is to create and once we discover the joy of creating, we shouldn't ever let it go...it doesn't matter whether you quilt, knit, crochet, write, paint, draw pictures in sand or compose music, whether it's a hobby or a living, whether you're good at it or simply mediocre, if brings you joy in any way, don't stop....oops, have I just gotten on a soapbox? Sorry, I didn't mean too but I think Erica has hit on really, really important topic...creativity. Making something from nothing, wow, what a trip. I can write, make up stories, cook a little and I can crochet (but I'm not going to win any contests with my afghans) and it's important because the one thing that really makes us all human is the ability to create something from nothing.
Love and peace,
Emily/Cheryl
Erica, your sister's business looks great! And as for not feeling creative, I know what you mean. I always think of creativity as something that manifests itself visually or results in weird clothes and amazing handmade gifts, not something like writing. But, of course, writing a book is creative, or we wouldn't be able to make up all these characters and put them in interesting situations. Most people who write fiction are, at heart, storytellers. And storytelling is creative.
I think I'm creative, but not ordered. It's work for me to structure an idea so it's worth something.
I love discussions about creativity. I think we're all creative in different ways.
:-)
A writer is, of course, creative - couldn't be otherwise. We all have some creativity in us but it comes out in different and often weird ways.
I trained as a fashion designer in Italy and ran a business here in New Zealand for a decade before selling it. I then did interior design for friends until I started writing. Creativity flows from one area to another. My job is as design and marketing manager and I can't believe how lucky I am to be creating stuff all day.
Erica, you are incredibly creative. Just reading your blog gives a flicker of an insight into a deep and very creative person. I can't believe you doubt that you are creative.
Hi Cheryl:
What a great insight!!! :-)
E
booklady:
That is exactly it. I think when YOU personally have a talent, sometimes you don't even see it. It's just how you are.
E
christine:
Creative but not ordered--I have THAT in spades.
E
Suzanne:
My Baby Girl wants to go into fashion. She designed her own chirt recently--it's GORGEOUS.
E
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