Courting Creativity

My latest illustration finished today for my friend Charlie's birthday

Update: July 13, 9:05 am

A apropos situation arose this am as I was editing this blog post. In my rush to work on this and get my laundry done at the same time I didn't check the pocket of my jeans and so I left both a kleenex and a pink sticky note in a pocket. I had just finished reading Mark Silver's excellent post on Copyblogger "Is Spiritual Business a Contradiction in Terms" and so I had a good laugh at myself. I always get in trouble when I try and move too fast and stop paying attention. How about you?

I've been drawing and painting quite a bit of late, something I haven't done in about seven years. Here is what I know when an idea for a drawing sparks me (remember July is all about what sparks us), I know I can create it. Yes, they're muscles that get very stiff from disuse, that need to be flexed and nurtured, but they're muscles I still have.

Do you have a skill like this? One that you don't always use but know you can rely on?

My first attempts at drawing and painting again at the end of last year were inspired by my nephew Simon being born. I decided he needed alphabet art for his walls. Seven+ months later I'm still working on them. I'm just not that pleased as they're too staid and boring. It's taken time for me to find my groove again. It's taken a lot of soul searching, and slowing down and noticing. And here is what occurred to me as I stood there at the dryer this morning and picked tiny little pieces of kleenex and pink sticky note off my clothes and the washing machine - slowing down and being truly mindful is exactly what my body and brain needs in order to allow the creative thinking and skills in.

I have realized lately that some of my biggest epiphanies have come after a particularly slow weekend, say after I've spent a day in bed with a migraine, or have focused on being very mindful.

But I can only find these artistic muscles again now because they've already been developed. Time and again throughout my adult life I've been able to revisit and explore them. I can ride a bike easily again now too (which my friend Charlie gets credit for) because I already learned how to as a child. And I can think outside of the box and come up with crazy inventive ideas for my friends and clients to tell their stories and celebrate their services because as a child I was encouraged to be a very creative thinker.

The most miserable time in my life was during my twenties when I was a sales executive in a very uncreative position in an uncreative industry. It was such a joy for me in my 30's to rediscover my ability to flex those muscles again in a myriad of ways.

I share all of this not because I want to brag about being creative, but because I found this article in Newsweek on the growing Creativity Crisis so sad and disturbing. It's beautifully spelled out and compelling. All of the rote learning going on right now in schools to get kids to hit the marks for the testing, testing, testing means our children aren't developing the critical creative thinking skills that put this nation on the top in so many areas - science, technology, medicine and yes, music and art.

Both the Chinese and the English are now moving full speed ahead into our old ways of encouraging "problem solving thinking" for education rather than rote learning and we, well I fear we're testing our kids to death. I so hope you'll read the article, the section on the National Hall of Fame Inventor's School in Akron Ohio will inspire you on the talent of 5th graders.

And what about who we are now and how we think as adults? What if we didn't have opportunities to express ourselves creatively back then? Are we painted into a dull corner? I don't think so. We are finding out more all the time about our ability to learn and grow and become even as we age. I firmly believe we can build new creative muscles as adults, and we can discover abilities we never knew we had. Can we become an opera singer or a ballerina at 50? Probably not, but I still think the opportunities are endless.

According to the Microtrends book middle aged piano students are the fastest growing segment of piano students.

I also think all of us owe it to ourselves to learn about the groundbreaking University of Minnesota "Nun Study" of Dr. David Snowden to better understand aging and Alzheimer's disease.

I first learned about the Nun Study on the Charlie Rose show and was totally fascinated by the findings. While the nuns develop Alzeimer's at about the same rate as the rest of our population they exhibit fewer outward signs of the disease. It is believed that their lifelong dedication to learning, their active lives well into old age, their close knit communities, and their simple diet all play an active role. I'm sure creative thinking plays a role as well.

So how can we bring creativity back into active conversation and application in our grade schools? And secondly how can we keep actively nurturing it within ourselves? One of the "Permission Slips from God" I have waited for my whole life was the permission to just be an artist, to just do what I loved. Looking around at my life this past weekend I realize that the universe has been speaking very clearly all along and of course I was the one who was afraid to listen - and yet, changing my mission as I have, and by realigning my approach, I recognize that I've been gearing up to accept that permssion for a few years now. What a joy to finally accept permission granted!

How about you?