A Creative Environment

Week seven, the intriguing and easily overlooked topic of Creative Environments came about in conversation.

What is a creative environment?

• Contains built, knowledge & social aspects
• Contains creative people
• Where creative products or solutions are formed

The above list mentions three aspects, divided to help understand and brainstorm the category. My class and I were asked the three questions below, to generate new perspectives and bring our attention to the topic surrounding how creative environments, influence creative works.

• What is the relationship between creative practice and the site/context in which it is presented?
• How do we find or generate the right context for our work?
• Who are our peers and what does collaboration amongst this group bring to creative practice?

Many of us find being comfortable assists in productivity, or at least we think that way. There are proven elements which encourage and promote one’s creativity, when speaking of a creative environment.

Some ways outlined in week seven’s tutorial were to add just a little bit of background noise, dim lighting – not too bright, not too dark, if working on a computer perhaps surround your background images to not associate with the topic you are concentrating on and finally certain colours such as red and blue, have been studied and known to impact the mind. These colours depend on the type of work being conducted of course, blue has been encouraged more so in creative nature, while red for more in depth, academic works.

 

A final piece of work, be it a song, a sculpture or a book, is a product of internal emotion by its creator. There is a reason as to why it is the way it is. The draft of any creation is largely influenced by the creator’s current mood or their interest’s. With this considered, the creator must also understand who his or her audience is, for the final piece to make sense, influence or appeal to someone.

 

Research, collaborations, general trial and error are some of the many ways to generate a context for works, although finding the right way does require time and patience. The reason being is that no one creative project is conducted exactly the same way as the next. The process can be seen as a puzzle, the idea of problem solving is a good way to think of it. With creative problem-solving techniques and tools, problems no longer have to be viewed as setbacks, rather as an opportunity (Sam, 1999).

 

Growing up, our peers are commonly described as someone at your own level; someone in your grade at school. Peers eventually become our social network, those we are surrounded by most of the time. Work colleagues, sporting groups, close friends can all be viewed as our peers. The influence they conduct on our creative workings is solely reliant on whether we allow their opinions to affect us or not. Ultimately, the choice is ours, for our peers to have or not to have any influence on our works. Rarely is this the case, as we generally respect our peers and, or have similar interests and styles as they. Apart from this, external insight into your own projects can usually be highly beneficial. Imagine writing a novel, irrelevant how long it took you to develop, you very likely spent a ridiculous amount of time pouring all your sweat and tears into it. Feedback from a peer could provide useful by the end of your editing, once you had reached the point of needing to look away because everything just seems the same and you suddenly feel like you have writer’s block and can’t go on. Peers provide alternative perspectives, a healthy process in any field of work.

 

References

Sam, Tomas. Hospital Materiel Management Quarterly 20.4 (May 1999): 33-45

The Concept of my Project. .

So I have developed an idea for my creative project. My plan is to design and create a short, contemporary comic strip.
The motivation I have behind this concept was first, to draw and secondly to tell a story. I waned to incorporate two disciplines which I hold great enthusiasm for, as well as areas I would like to advance in. Apart from consolidating my passions into this project, I had set goals earlier in this year to draw and write more; to ultimately increase my creative outlook.
The concept of a comic strip is what I see as the start of one creation, subsequent for something I plan to further produce, following the completion of this unit.

 

Rebelling Against Tradition (Modernity)

This week’s Question to work with was:
So what “creativity” means has changed over time, and its current meaning depends upon which traditions one is drawing from. Contrast your own views on creativity with the topic of Modernity. How are they different/similar?

Composition III, Wassily Kandinsky

Once upon a time, conventions dominated the way humans lived; this could receive more negative views if compared to today’s society motions. As we continue to evolve, so do these conventions. Today, we see a movement in them, primarily if we look back centuries ago. Modern society now, has modified the way in which we once both thought and acted, promoting freedom of choice and originality as a new way of life. Conventions play a prominent part in all cultures, as each culture tend to have their own sets of them, that majority abide by; seen as socially acceptable ways to operate. Benefits of conventions can be seen to assist in building a framework and creating inspiration for something bigger and better.
The existence of art has transformed immensely with the impact of cultural influence over time. The cultural impact of ‘art’ has allowed the idea of art to grow in an array of form, shape, and appearance, resulting in the viewer’s reaction to expand and accept (Summers, 2013). The art form is continuing to broaden with the influence of culture, tradition, freedom, resources, and awareness. With the expansion and movement of the primary definition of art, this does not conclude to the idea that the quality is any less (Summers, 2013).

The rebellious times of the early twentieth century saw modernism first surface. The period of modernism was marked by spontaneous breaks with traditions or conventional ways of how humans interacted or perceived the world (Rahn, 2011). The new period of modernism, encouraged experimentation and individualism, characteristics which not all agreed upon, as in the past, these views were highly discouraged (Rahn, 2011).

In terms of modernism in today’s society; its association with creativity, the category has vastly expanded. In some ways, the period of modernism never ended, it just evolved, assisting innovative humans as a framework for future developments. Individualism and experimentation have become tools in the way humans work and live, these traits are commended upon in almost all aspects of living today.

When we talk about modernism today, many immediately relate the term to architectural works. If you type modernism into the Pinterest search engine, images of modernist architecture engulf your eyes.

Dependent on how you view the term itself, modernism can nowadays be applied to almost any discipline or creative movement. Like many things, we need a basis, the framework, the original recipe to begin with. It helps us brainstorm and produce influential masterpieces later in time.

References

Rahn, J. (2011). Modernism. The Literature Network. Retrieved from The Literature Network website: http://www.online-literature.com/periods/modernism.php

Summers, D. (2013). Regarding Art and Art History. The Art Bulletin, 95(3), 355-356

Wassily Kandinsky and his paintings. (2011). Wassily Kandinsky Biography, Paintings, and Quotes. from http://www.wassily-kandinsky.org

 

The Creative Personality

Creativity has a point of paramount significance to our lives. To be creative allows us to feel a sense of fulfillment within our self, bringing us excitement along the way (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996).

Researcher and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi have collated his research of the topic of creativity into ten antithetical traits, in order to help him understand how a creative mind may work. This week’s reading of The Creative Personality, which was written by Csikszentmihalyi, explores the traits he has conducted, under the genre of creativity.

Csikszentmihalyi manages to provide an insightful overview of how creative individuals work and think in all aspects of life. His fascination with the ideology of creativity, lead him to devote thirty years of researching. His protracted journey researching, gained him treasured knowledge, surrounding the stimulating topic. With the process of many interviews he had with creative individuals, Csikszentmihalyi was able to capture aspects of their personalities that allowed him to define the ten antithetical traits.

Praising creative people for their ability to adapt to almost any situation, Csikszentmihalyi highlights how invaluable and impressive this trait is. The complexity of personalities is the difference between creative people and the rest of us (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996).

I imagine a creative person to be a person of variance, one who is broad-minded and not afraid of failure and excited about exploration.

In response to this week’s reading, I was inspired by a certain individual who does not receive as much mention or recognition as they maybe should these days. Someone who I believe displayed extreme creativity was Charles Lutwidge Carroll, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll. The brain behind the famous Alice in Wonderland creations, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The gift of his commodious imagination has left lasting impressions in the minds of adults and children all over the world.

His adult years saw Carroll become a successful mathematical lecturer at the college he attended, Christ Church, Oxford, England and later become a deacon. (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2016). Described as a shy character, Lewis made up for his introverted personality by his enchanting writing that soon followed. Having a rare balance of strong creative writing abilities and academic success, Lewis Carroll is a great example of someone who defeats the myth that one cannot excel both academically and creatively.

The Alice books were inspired by an encounter Carroll had with the head of the Christ Church’s daughter, four-year-old Alice Liddell. Over the next few years, in his spare time, Carroll would tell Alice and her sister’s stories that he would make up. One story of a little girl who had fallen into a rabbit hole caught the attention of young Alice, who asked Carroll to write the story out for her (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2016). Backing up the link Csikszentmihalyi (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996) clarifies of “creative people combining playfulness and discipline”.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996, Jul). The creative personality. Psychology Today, 29, 36-40.

Lewis Carroll Biography. (2016, 2016). Encyclopedia of World Biography. from http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ca-Ch/Carroll-Lewis.html

 

Why am I here. . . ?

Plainly, I am here for a university assignment that requires me to respond and document weekly class discussions, my thoughts and opinions related to them. While also utilising this blog as a safekeeping journal following my progress on a creative assignment.