Fluency, Flexibility, Originality

Today I got a letter from a friend who is thinking about taking up cake decorating again.  She claims the reason is because she needs another creative outlet, and oh, yes, she wants to be able to create roses out of icing.  It seems that unbeknownst to me, she used to create cakes for her family.  Remember when it was a 'mom' thing to make cakes shaped like cartoon characters or action heroes?  It was a talent to be able to make a ninja turtle.  As she pointed out, most moms in the 21st century don't have the time to spend half a day (or more) baking, cutting and icing creatively.  

One of the many things I love about this friend is she believes that creativity is important.  Her main creative outlet is card making.  She's right about creativity.  I can remember getting really depressed staying home with my infant daughter.  Everything that didn't involve the baby seemed so pointless - cook, clean up, mop floor, load dishwasher, empty dishwasher, make bed, dust, vacuum, on, and on, and on.  Way, way too much of my day was spent doing mindless repetitive chores.  Never once did anyone say,"WOW, what a clean floor!"   That's when I found needle crafts and sewing.  Creating clothes for the baby - after teaching myself how to sew - made all the difference to the stay at home life for me.

When I went back to teacher school, I actually took a class about Creativity.  It floored me to learn that after passing the age of seven, most people decide they aren't creative.  Our perception of creativity continues to narrow the older we get.  Here's the definition of creativity:  There are three components:  Fluency, Flexibility, and Originality.  The fluency element of creativity basically means you can generate a lot of ideas about a specific topic or problem.  The flexibility component means you can take an idea and rework it in unexpected ways.  Nevertheless, most of us continue to only consider the third component, originality, when we think about creativity.  In truth, everyone has the ability to be creative.  The trick is to convince yourself you are.

I think women give themselves more freedom to be creative.  Perhaps it's because in the not too distant past, most of us were stuck in either low end repetitive chore jobs, or home with people under three feet tall for years at a time.  Smart women figured out pretty quickly they would go bonkers or develop a love affair with alcohol if they didn't develop a talent or a skill.  Being creative makes you feel good about yourself.  It's a rush to make something, or exercise a talent.  Ironically, what you produce doesn't even have to be very good to get those positive feelings.  All you have to do is improve - even if it's only in your own eyes.  Looking back, my first sewing efforts and my first embroidery efforts were pretty pitiful.  It didn't matter a bit.  Solving the problems, understanding the patterns, developing the skills were all part of doing something that mattered to me in way that housework or cooking never did.  Creativity fosters passion.

Once you accept your personal creativity, then it naturally blossoms.  I'm more likely now to embrace the creative spirit when trying to solve a problem, and I often let it loose to come up with solutions.  For example, I'm so tired of the drabness of Arizona.  Everything is some shade of beige.  Bland, blah, dingy, and finally, depressing.  I like color.  I like being surrounded by color.  Inside the house, it's pretty easy - paintings, pottery, even furniture has color.  But once you step outside, beige and tan everywhere.  Well, this week I planted a complete flower garden in the front of my house - it's a riot of flowers of every shade and hue.  I spent the better part of an afternoon 'planting'.  I have tall flowers and short flowers and two dozen varieties; they span the entire front flower bed.  They are, of course, 100% silk, and they look marvelous, darling.  Creativity to the rescue.

I'm very interested in how other people tap into their own personal creativity.  What's your creative outlet?  How did you find it?  Did you specifically set out to find your creativity, or did you fall into it?  This inquiring mind wants to know.  If you read this blog, let me know how you are exercising your creativity.  And if you're not, why not?  (P.S.  -   "I'm not creative."  isn't an acceptable or even a true answer.)