Do you remember these cartoons drawn by Kim Casali for her new husband? They used to feature everywhere.
Creativity can be like the many examples given in the ‘love is…’ cartoons, it comes in many forms.
For me personally, my creativity comes out in writing, gardening, cooking, teaching and party planning and photography. I am sure it will pop its head in many other places, but theses are for me, the obvious places that I am creative.
In writing, I invent new characters, I build new worlds, I design narrative plots. I often break the rules of word count, of mixing styles. With my style of writing, they work.
In cooking, I experiment with flavour and techniques, most recently a new to the family vegetable, was one we have grown for many months, Kohl Rabi. Not only was it seen as an experiment, but a risk.
When trying something new there is always the risk of not liking it, or not having the skills. But you will never know unless you take the risk.
And then there are the mistakes.
When my two youngest sons were smaller, one made the mistake of delving into the largest box of cereal with his little arm to get to the bottom, probably a free toy. He did this reaching up. Meaning the cornflake box was soon tipped over him and the cornflakes were all over the floor.
My husband and I had been watching the whole process, stifling instructions and laughing, wanting him to discover for himself the outcome.
Tears came quickly.
Stepping in we walked over cereal crunching under our toes. This made them giggle. Within moments all four of us plus three dogs were stamping on cornflakes, creating patterns, and sounds they hadn’t seen or heard before, laughing proper belly laughs. Our older sons, were to as impressed!
I think on that day we created the best thing possible besides all the fun we had. Memories.
For me creativity is…
memories.
What does creativity mean to you?