The nagging feeling
Although my wife and I clearly have a passion for the arts, we had the nagging feeling that somehow we needed to find another way to connect the arts with, let’s call it, the “real world”.
We believe it was very important for us and others to understand the relevance of art not only to other artists but to non-artists as well.
But we didn’t know how to approach the problem.
I mean, we are artists, and I know for a fact we don’t like or understand every artform there is, so we understand why people would “leave the room mentally” when talking about the subject.
With jobs and responsibilities outside of our art practice, we understand how limited time can affect one’s relationship with the arts.
The other thing is that, in a hierarchy of needs, art is on the higher echelons, leaving the bottom ones for the most primitive and urgent needs, like food and shelter, and to take the car for the third time to the mechanic while praying it won’t cost a month worth of your paycheck to fix it.
We get it. It’s not like we go every weekend to the shopping center dying if we don’t get another piece of art.
Yet, as I said in an earlier article “Is art still relevant?”, you either are making art, consuming art, or both.
Therefore, we felt some sort of obligation to share our thoughts on the subject.
The common ground
After thinking and researching about it, we found what we would refer to as a “thread of a common ground” among artist and non-artist people alike:
Creativity.
Although everyone has varying degrees of creativity, it doesn’t mean such creativity would be expressed in the form of art necessarily.
But somehow, that's the general perception: you are creative if you make art.
Thus, every other expression of people's creativity which is not manifested as art goes unrecognized, and ultimately, down the toilet.
If the category of creativity was an umbrella, art would fall under it together with many other subcategories or forms in which creativity can be expressed.
Again, contrary to what many might believe, creativity is not art.
Thus, creativity was a broader spectrum that would include people from every walk of life, and the vehicle by which we could, maybe not introduce (it’s not like we are inventing anything here) but reinforce the relevance of creativity in everyday life, and as expected from us both artists, include arts in the mix.
If creativity is not art, what is it then?
This is the definition of creativity by the American Psychological Association
It seems to me that creativity is mostly a mental skill which produces new and valuable ideas and works that can be used across different areas of life in addition to traditional artistic endeavors.
And as with any skills, creativity can be learned, fostered, and improved upon.
Creative Power
I like to think of creativity as an energy flow within us, seeking the right medium for expression to achieve inner balance and self-realization. (for more on the concept of self-expression, read the prior article “Art and Self-Expression?”).
Otherwise, if the creative energy remains stuck inside, you an me run the risk of experiencing inner turmoil.
One of the most popular mediums this creative energy finds to express itself, is art.
Art offers the great benefit of lacking official rules as to "how you have to" go about it. Instead, it offers guides you can use as templates in order to produce that creative idea you have thought for days.
This leniency in art provides ample room for the release of the creative energy without the typical limitations other mediums bring to the table, like a rigid structure you must follow, for example.
As I have mentioned, art is not the only medium there is for the release of this creative force; it’s just one of many.
I believe that our circumstances and our own individual preferences will eventually find the right medium, and if it cannot be found, it will create an escape route with brute force soon or later.
The creative spectrum
This just reminded me of a few years back when I was working selling health insurance in a call center type of environment.
Overall, the job was good, and definitely there was a lot of creativity involved in handling those upset prospects which I was bothering at seven in the morning asking if they wanted information about our insurance products.
The creativity in that job came from navigating prospect’s objections, answering their questions tactfully, and keeping up the conversation flowing while still trying to manage their attitude and your sometimes itch of wanting to punch them in the face through the phone (which is interesting because it was a Christian health insurance company, which meant I needed to keep the Christian spirit on at all times and even pray for them on the phone at the end of the call, literally.).
However, the job was driving me crazy.
It seemed the room for creativity I had at that job was very limited compared to the amount of creative energy I was producing and storing inside, which was creating a lot of inner turmoil due to an excess of energy accumulated.
There were too many protocols and rules, and steps, and clicking buttons preventing me to “flow” with my creative ideas.
In a desperate attempt to manage some of that creative energy inside I started drawing, and writing short stories on a notebook while waiting for the next call to come in.
Now, this example would give room, again, to think of creativity and art as the same thing.
In my particular case, it just happened that the way my creative energy prefers to flow was and is, through more traditional artistic endeavors.
But I can think of, for instance, my mother-in-law.
My wife and I used to live in the same apartment complex than her and we would visit her every couple of days to watch movies and eat together.
Virtually everytime we would visit her, she was working on a different project, from huge puzzles (normally of cats), to paper mache figurines, to big stuffed animals she would make out of knitting thread, to have decorated the whole front of her apartment according to the season of the year, to building the facade of a whole chimney out of real wood for her kitchen…
Another example in which creativity can express through other mediums other than art, is my coworker.
That man is the fastest person I know whose ability to come up with the most clever answers and jokes from either the most bizarre situations or the most common ones would leave you mouth-opened. In either case, other “normal” people would need to think very-very hard to make a joke out of such situations. And it’s clear the clients love him for that.
Or take my own dad, which his insistence in prioritizing safety while working can put your patience to the test.
Anytime there is some work to do around the house that requires even the most minimum percentage of danger or physical energy output, you will be stopped on your tracks by my dad.
He will teach you the safest and easiest way to do the job. You get desperate because now that quick job is taking longer, but you end up amazed at the ingenuity of his thinking process which makes you wonder “How did you think of that?” (thank you, dad, for protecting us).
The two faces of creativity
Like those examples, there are many other ways in which creativity could be expressed.
Some ways in which creativity can manifest and are less obvious has nothing to do with producing something but more about receiving something.
You have probably met this person, or are one yourself, that says things such as “I am not creative at all. I can only draw a smiley face, and that’s about the extent of my whole creativity.”.
Again, that person would be confusing two different subjects: creativity and art.
The smiley face might not be necessarily impressive artistically speaking, but she might be the same person who has a whole collection of fantasy books she reads at night, or loves to sing those 80’s songs at the top of her lungs while driving back home from work, or laughs loudly at a good joke, or the one that is able to spoil a good thriller movie by somehow predicting who is the assassin…
Only creativity can recognize creativity.
What does that mean?
It means that although creativity is in all of us, we use it differently to either produce something (let’s call that active creativity), or to interpret something (let’s call this receptive creativity), both two faces of the same coin.
Conclusion
Whether you are an artist or not, you possess a creative energy which you can (and should) nurture and use to enrich your life and that of others.
Recognize that creativity is not confined to traditional arts, and that it has many ways in which it can be expressed.
The key here is to remember while creativity is a mental process to generate novel and valuable ideas, solutions and products, art is an aesthetic expression of such mental process, but not the only type of creative expression.
The ways in which creativity will be expressed will depend on each person, so it is vital we not only honor our own particular ways of manifesting it but respect that of others.
Final words
Although this article was one of the ways by which we tried to deal with that nagging feeling about creativity and art not being seriously considered by others as something relevant to everyday life, it did not fully satisfy us completely.
Therefore, we decided to facilitate a tool so you can harness your creative powers.
That’s why we will release very soon an ebook about the five creative archetypes.
This ebook is our attempt to organize the different types of creative energies under five categories under which you will be able (hopefully) to identify your own creative energy and make use of it more effectively.
Author: Jason Berberena
Visual artist, writer, and co-founder of Kreation Artzone