The Book Blog

This will link you to my new blog and what I learned from doing this book.
http://mybookmirrormirror.blogspot.com

What Makes us Creative?

What Makes us Creative?

Photo: diluvi

Are you creative?

More creativity means more fun, more buzz, more laughter in life.

Scientists see creative innovation as the communication between regions of the brain that are not usually connected. A crucial ingredient of creativity is the ability to develop alternative solutions, known as ‘divergent thinking’. (From an interesting article on creativity by a neuropsychiatrist).

How does this work? Let’s look at how the idea of writing a post about creativity occurred to me: I was watching an elegant tango dancer glide across the floor. She is an artist and had just told me that she enjoys reading my blog. Suddenly the idea of writing a post on creativity flashed into my brain. You can see in this example how my brain connected three different dots: ‘artist’, ‘writing a post’, and ‘creativity’.

Creativity is a natural state of mind.

It is not something that some people have and others lack. Children call being creative ‘playing’. It’s hard to find a child that can’t do that! I hang out a lot with two great friends, Anna and Mary, who are 11 and 12 years old. Every walk we do together ends up as a new episode of our ongoing fantasy game in which we are undercover ninjas on a secret mission. (My code name is ‘Sparkle’!)

Creativity then is not something far away and difficult to achieve. It is something natural that we need to re-discover within.

To be creative, judgment needs to be suspended.

Most people stifle their creativity because they don’t know how to shut up their internal editor. You don’t know who that person is? Let me introduce you to him or her: Take a piece of paper and write the first paragraph of what might become a novel, or start sketching out a painting. Now listen to the voice in your head. You’ll hear something like this: “That’s stupid!” or “You really suck!” or “You’re wasting your time!”

That voice is familiar, right?

Creating and editing are processes that happen in different parts of the brain. Creativity springs forth from the right side of the brain, whereas editing or analysing happens in the left side.

Take a look at this list of right- versus left-side brain functions:

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
“big picture” oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can “get it” (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

This list is from an article in the Herald Sun. There is a fascinating test on the site where you can find out whether you are thinking with the left of right side of the brain. Check it out here. Try looking at the image with different kind of thoughts. Can you make it change direction?

Now take another look at the list of right-brain and left-brain functions. Do you spend more time in the left or the right part of your brain?

From all of this you can understand how creating and editing at the same time can’t work. Because the moment you move from the right to the left side of the brain your creativity dries up.

Here are some interesting tips on creativity by cartoonist gapingvoid:

• Ignore everybody. The more original your idea is, the less good advice people will be able to give you.
• Put the hours in. Doing anything worthwhile takes forever.
• You are responsible for your own experience. Nobody can tell if what you’re doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile.
• Everyone is born creative.
• Everyone has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
• Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.
• Passion can’t be bought.
• Sing in your own voice.
• The best way to get approval is not to need it.

Making My Connections

Finding Metaphors

TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLES
The sound of music
I have confidence
Late for dinner
Messenger boy
The rowboat
The party
So long farewell
Climb every mountain
Something good
Wedding bells
The joyous Junker
Perfect pitch
A rolling panic
Truly scrumptious
This lovely lonely man
Red carpet treatment
Roses of success
Strange places
Cellar secrets
The hiding places
Doll on a music box
Ridiculous suggestion
Mystery
Skeleton Crew

HEADINGS + TAGLINES
Mirror, Mirror
Heroes
From a concept to a creation
Going global
All here, all yours, all new
Snap judgments
Today’s mail
Leading off
A gift you can open again and again
Live your dreams
You’ll never know
Our comfort
Revamp your basket
For the record
We’re still rebuilding
Quick Study
Style around town
Yes you can
Road warrior
A good neighbor
For the next generation

EXPLORATIONS, READINGS, WRITINGS
Late for dinner= Stop and smell the roses
Perfect pitch=everyone is different
Doll on a music box=life is a dance
The hiding places=always seek the unknown
Skeleton Crew=It only takes one
For the record= A clean slate
A rolling panic=Fear of success
You’ll never know=It’s all about the knowing
Wedding bells=For the record
Climb every mountain=Mirror, Mirror
The joyous Junker=Unexpected art
Cellar secrets=Cob webs and spiders
Our comfort=roll with the punches

The Magic Garden

www.caroleandpaula.com

While going through youtube I searched for a program that I watched when I was little. It was called The Magic Garden. This program was base purely on music and imagination. I never missed it. I remember run so fast up the stairs when I heard the opening song. It was on everyday around 1:30 pm. I was just learning how to speak English and it was one of the ones that helped me learn faster. All it was was to women and singing with a guitar and their puppet friends Sherlock the squirrel, Flap the duck, flowers that had jokes on their leafs, a chest that always had nursery ryhm costumes that they would use to act out a play, and many other surprises. They would also teach words in other languages. I know it sounds corny but as a 3-6 year old I loved it and it let me us my imagination by creative. This show was syndicated and could only be seen if you lived in the North like New York. At this time I was living in Long Island at Huntington Station. It had 12 year run and they are still at it doing private shows.

Explorations

Explorations # 57 Thought Experiments

1. What if the world was my canvas what would I draw in it?

2. What do animals think of the world and the humans that live on it?

3. What or who guides us towards our future?

4. Do we all have a predestined path to follow?

5. What is my propose in this world, why am I here?

6. I do I offer to the world that really matters?

7. If I could travel back in time what would I change and what would I leave the same and why?

Explorations

Exploration #32 A World of Magic



This dear holds the magic of your destiny. If you come to him with a truly pure heart it will guide you true calling. He will not tell you what it is but if you have lost your way he will guide you back in your path.If you are lucky he will even give you a small glimpse of your probable future if you flow its path.

Finding Connections

Art is our visual soul, and music our emotional soul.
One can’t live without the other.
Music lets you feel what’s inside, while art gives you the freedom to show it.
The colors and sounds all mixed into one.
Fusing together to make you whole.
Your emotions rule you and make you who you are.
They are the strength, hopes, fears, and dreams we hold dear.
Art expresses them for all the world to see.
May as we might we try to hide them, but the brush is stronger than our will.
It lies in wait for the right moment to appear.
For in time all will be revealed.

What drives you?
Is art only for arts sake?
What part does your culture play?
Is art the child that lies within?
What colors color your world?
What sounds fill your life?
What do your eyes search for?
What does your soul hunger for?
Where do you go to find peace?

One to the world
Faking it
In exile
Through a broken lens
Border zones
Struggle to lose control
Public enemy

Lost
Soulless
Shadows
Joyful
Acceptance
Truth
Lies

Research

Mental illness Patient Art Work

Explorations

Explorations #8 Cracks



I have lived here since 1991 and never really explored it. I went looking for cracks keeping in mind that cracks represent time. It was amazing to see what I found some cracks were so old that they were almost more like faint scars barely visible to the eye. Some of the cracks I found were growing new life within them, and some had a story to them sorta like a mystery. Then there were some that I only knew the story of why they were there. They are all so similar yet at the same time so unique.

Art Diary Pages

Before I started RCAD I would draw just for fun as a way releasing myself on paper. I did this ever since I can remember. When I graduated from high school I decide it was time to clean it up and organize it. I believe I was the harshest critic of what was allowed and what was trash. I think I threw out 2 bags full of what I considered thrash, stupid, or unworthy of keeping. What was left was put in a 3 ring red binder and put away and considered my art diary. I never really wrote a diary but I came me that in my own way I did have a diary and to me it seem more personnal than just writting words it shows more of me than words do. To my this diary more preciuos to me.

Timeline of Comfort

My Stuffed Animals

I am in the middle of doing a coping time line. I got home from class and drew images of the stuffed toys I have had through my childhood as my starting place. My next step is placing them in the right order and add what help me through the teen years. Then write a little about each one, what I can remember in some cases I was to young . I only remember the end years of some of these toys history.

Fitting In

At what age do we start to want to fit in, and why?
Do we start caring, from child hood?

I believe that we start caring about fitting in when we are about 5 years old because before that we have our family taking care of us. We do not have society to worry about. Once we reach school age we start to deal with peer pressure, and the standards that society believes are important and allow you to fit in. If you are too fat, short, tall, smart, skinny, or are from another ethnic group or country it will affect how people think of you or treat you. We stared getting type cast, and find that once you have been placed into a group the popular, unpopular you are stuck in it while you are in that same group. If you want to fit in with the popular crowd you have to play by their rules. We start wanting to be part of a group, because we want to have friends, we want to belong and not be left out. Be singled out make you an out cast and also a target that can be mocked at. It also makes you feel good or bad about yourself depending on where your peers place you. The issue with society is that there is nowhere that states every one has to be thin and fit and smart and funny and fit in. It is just the perceptions we have because of the mass media and people go crazy over stuff like that. Like they binge and they don’t eat and they become bulimic and no one is totally comfortable with them self because there afraid of how the world is viewing them.

Type Studies

Explorations

Explorations #58 Scavenger Hunt

Explorations

Exploration #9 Box Of Curiosities



I chose this one because I have always loved collecting small objects. It makes me think of we always tend to want to make everything small. The smaller the better. Maybe we feel we can control it better. I look around and small CD, miniature broad games, decks of cards, cell phones, radios, and I could go on and on. It a way of controlling our surroundings may making us feel more confident in ourselves.

Music Videos

The first one is my favorite Don't Laugh At Me, By Mark Wills.

Fitting In Research

Think of last class I made a list of words that can be connected to social acceptance. These are the words that I thought.
Conformity
Identity
Acceptance
Approval
Friendship
Belonging
Rejection
Loneliness
Fitting In
Self Esteem

I also found this articles:
http://teenadvice.about.com/library/weekly/aa053101a.htm
http://teenadvice.about.com/cs/friendships
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2248/is_140_35/ai_70777836/pg_2?tag=content;col1

Questions that it brought up:
At what age do we start to want to fit in, and why?
Why do we want to fit in?
What are societies norms for fitting in?
Who is out and who is in?
What happens when you are the out cast?
In what way does it affect you if you do or don't fit in?
Is it all just a big fad?
Why is being different considered to be the number one rule not to be accepted?
Does not fitting in make you the better and stronger person?
What are some of the consequences of not fitting in?
What happens when you do fit in?
Is it better not to be yourself just so you fit in?

Words/Image Excersises

A hero out of the rubble.


Your emotions rule you and make you who you are.


It lies in wait for the right moment to appear.


For in time all will be revealed.


One can’t live without the other.


Fusing together to make you whole.


Whose life really began?


What else could you have done about life in all of its aspects?


Any activity becomes creative it is the by-product of good expectations.


The only one I trusted and only one I told my secrete to.


The brush is stronger than our will and he's friend ready to listen.


They are the strength, hopes, fears, and dreams we hold dear.


It’s an escape from the really world.


The by-product of creative people would explain the goal.


Art expresses the colors of our visual soul for all the world to see.