Today’s beautiful post is written by team member Karen. The photos are taken by Anna of Karen with her sweet daughter, Elsa.

School taught me I wasn’t very artistic. I couldn’t color in the lines as well as my classmates and my art teacher never found my paintings as realistic as the girl sitting next to me. My mediocre grades in art taught me by the end of the sixth grade that I just wasn’t creative.

I stopped taking art classes, but thankfully I would still have some rather powerful art tutors. One was books. Two was the orchards and fields I traversed, often with a camera in hand. Three was my mother, who saw in her daughter a penchant for styling clothing and would frequently tell me when I exited my bedroom to leave for school, “I just love seeing how you put outfits together,” though she could have easily deemed my interest vain or frivolous. And when I grew disinterested in piano lessons, she made me persevere in what would be an emotional outlet for me in my teen years. Indiscernible to me at the time, my creative inclinations grew more outside of the art room than inside.

I can look over the past 30 years of my life and find I learned a few simple truths about creativity. These have been foundational in understanding not only how I have been created but how my daughter, my husband, and even the Char Co. community have been created. These three facts I hope will strengthen you in your creative endeavors and give you confidence to walk in the way you have been made.

  1.    We are all creative.

Creativity is innate. God knitted us in our mother’s womb. He was the First Creator and being made in His image, we also have the ability to create. Did you know in the Tibetan language there is no word for creativity? The word they use is “natural.” They don’t say, “I’m creative.” They say, “I’m natural.” Just look at little kids. They have huge imaginations and read books about Mama and Papa Bear who live in a tree house. They don’t bat an eye when they learn the big red dog is bigger than a house. And Arthur becomes a real life person to them that they forget he is an aardvark.

I don’t believe there is the creative type and the uncreative type. I also don’t believe we should say, “I’m a creative.” Beyond the nitpicky fact that we would be committing the grammatical infraction of using an adjective as a noun, we would be on our way towards creating a hierarchy. The “creatives” are up here; the “non-creatives” are down there. If someone claims to us that they are “a creative,” our response should be, “Well, I would hope you are! In fact, I never met someone who wasn’t.”

Along a similar vein, I don’t believe one occupation is creative and another is not. A potter uses a creative eye just as a construction worker uses a creative eye. My father’s art canvas is the meticulous rows of fruit trees he tends, and my Amish friend’s canvas is her elaborate garden. Creativity is intrinsic. We can’t teach someone to be creative, but we can teach someone to smother his creativity.

2.    Creativity is a muscle. It needs to be exercised.

We can block and bind up our creativity. This happens to many adults who look back on their childhoods and wonder where their imaginations went. If we don’t exercise our creativity, it weakens. But don’t despair! It doesn’t go away; it just needs strengthening. Take a workshop, go for a hike, visit a new town or gaze upon a field of flowers that will show you the touch of the First Artist’s hand. Surround yourself with people who will unleash, not stifle, your creativity.

I love the story of how Ansel Adams commenced his journey towards becoming one of America’s most beloved photographers. Socially awkward and struggling to learn, he did not succeed in the various schools he attended during his youth; finally his father decided to educate him at home. This gave Ansel hours to explore the sand dunes near his San Francisco home. Nature thrilled his creative soul, and before a family trip to Yosemite, his father handed him his first camera. He would never stop taking pictures, and he would never stop visiting Yosemite. Mr. Adams unbridled his son’s creative eyes.

 3.    Creativity is a state of being.

Creativity is not just production but a way of life. A mind that is alert and lively exhibits creativity. The way I clean my home can involve creativity if I go about it with an energetic mind, not a disinterested. The way I choose to cook is a creative act, as I learn to prepare nourishing meals while sticking to a limited grocery budget. The way I choose to interact with my daughter is a creative act. At the mere age of two, she already sharpens my senses as she notices the three pools, two bicycles, and five cows my dim eyes would have easily missed on our walk, and the train and the plane my dulled ears did not quicken to hear. She teaches me that when music plays, our bodies were made to dance, and that a goose saying, “Honk,” truly does deserve a bit of a giggle. Creativity is more than painting, writing poetry, and playing music. Creativity gives vigor to the manner in which we live each of our days.

Let me end with this quote:

“If you have been afraid that your love of beautiful flowers and the flickering flame of the candle is somehow less spiritual than living in starkness and ugliness, remember that He who created you to be creative gave you the things with which to make beauty and gave you the sensitivity to appreciate and respond to His creation. Creativity is His gift to you and the ‘raw materials’ to be put together in various ways are His gift to you as well.”
The Hidden Art of Homemaking: Creative Ideas for Enriching Everyday Life, Edith Schaeffer

If you are interested, these are some sources that have greatly influenced my thinking on the subject of creativity…

• Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All, Tom Kelly & David Kelly
• The Hidden Art of Homemaking: Creative Ideas for Enriching Everyday Life, Edith Schaeffer
• Pslam 139
• Job 38, 39
• Sir Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk: How Schools Kill Creativity

– Karen McGrady