On creativity

On Creativity

I have been often told that I am creative. I get this compliment for all these occasions.
• I made left over bread slices into bread pakoda.
• Copied and painted a pretty flower from a book on to a table cloth.
• Designed a brochure with a template from a computer program.
• Learnt how to rip music on my own.
• Made wasted CDs into coasters

We think these people / non people are creative-
• Scientists who invent and discover stuff
• God
• Artists
• Writers
• Cooks
• Business men

What makes them creative is the fact that each of them accomplished something that was new or never there before.
Creativity is when the product is greater than its sum of the total parts. Sometimes I also think the product serves a function in a unique way, it does not just create a new function but opens up a whole new world of possibility. Look at the words we associate with creativity- out of the box, beyond limits, imagination.
It gives us a feeling of creating something real out of nothing. But not all new ideas are expressions of creativity.
“So novelty is not enough. Something creative must also have some value relative to what already exists and what is perceived as being needed. (Note that this, and all the foregoing discussion, focuses on what might be called "intellectual" or "technological" or "practical" creativity, whereas there is, of course, another dimension of value that has little to do with practicality and perhaps not much more to do with intellectuality, and that is artistic creativity. Here one of the criteria of value is aesthetic value, an affective or emotional criterion that will turn out to resurface unexpectedly even in intellectual creativity”.

What we can also say about artistic creativity is that even the value of what is determined by whatever is regarded as aesthetic for a particular set of people.
When I put together a papier-mâché sculpture that didn’t mean anything and looked quite ugly on my table –
This is the conversation that followed –
My Aunt
What is this for?
Nothing.
Long pause, while I rearranged it.
Is it modern art?
No.
Pause.discomfort.
Where did you get the paint from?
Well, Gangarams.
Are you taking Classes?
No!
My psychologist friend-
It’s a good way to vent your frustration!

(Well, They are a bit more relaxed but still uncomfortable)

My friend -
It’s nice you do all these things. This is nice. (It was not by any standard, it was ugly).

My Husband
What ever this is its great becoz you did it (He is married to me for 7 years and knows that he may not say anything else)

These conversations demonstrate that the world of creations needs function.
Now to God’s creation- Nature. Or self made creation called the natural world. Someone whom we try to imitate. I am looking at creativity if it is just important or adaptation. Is it a kind of biological adaptation to an environment- intellectual or even for survival.
An ability to fit unsuitable, limited spaces and make them utilizable. Only those projects are creative which have had limits on them.

More thoughts next blog.