HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR LIFE THROUGH ART
I have taught hundreds of students over the last fifty years in community colleges, private schools, and private studios. One thing I’ve come to realize is that many of us believe that people who are creative are talented. They are born with certain creative talents, and those who are not imbued with those special inclinations are doomed to an uncreative life. Example: “I can draw a straight line!” or “I can’t even draw a stick figure!”
But they are wrong. What I have discovered is that we ALL have creative gifts. As human beings, we are hardwired to be creative, and this propensity served us well in ancient times. Think about it. We invented spears to hunt animals for food, we invented the wheel to go where we needed to go, and we discovered agriculture by collecting seeds, planting them to provide food for our families. All of these and many more advances that led to civilization as we know it today were born from our combined informational knowledge and creative efforts: observation, visualization, problem solving, imagination, and invention. All of these creative abilities enhanced our survival in the present.
RICH LEARNING
The parts of our brains that have developed to invent, imagine, and solve problems are very much alive and well in our brains today. If we recognize our innate creative abilities and adapt them to our future creative goals, we see that we can contribute much to the enrichment of the human race. Unfortunately, many cultures, including our own, often discredit the power of creativity as an important factor of global unifying development, preferring more primitive and aggressive tactics such as war, repression and political domination.
Today in the United States, we like to think that supporting math and science in education guarantees our dominance on the educational front. And, in the global community, in fact, these skills are very important for our progress. But, if just memorizing and reiterating facts drives education in math, science, and all other fields of learning, we are selling our students down, depriving them of the resource of creativity that will integrate them with global needs.
If academic studies were to dive deeper into creative educational applications such as problem solving, design, invention, research and development, a richer learning experience would propel more successful students into the global future. A full spectrum of learning, combining the basic knowledge skills required by the subject combined with the creative skills required by students to apply, those skills to investigate, invent, visualize – this is the expansion of knowledge we need to tackle a more deeper, richer and more. compelling motivation to improve our real world and future.
MY CREATIVE EXPERIENCE
I have experienced this creative transition in my own life, having applied my creative skills to reinvent or solve problems in various jobs. in teaching art. I have worked to instruct and develop this same transition in my students who come from many backgrounds including: psychotherapy, engineering, medical technicians, writers, authors, retail associates, and financial consultants.
When I was a child, I drew pictures and my parents and grandparents would compliment me on the little drawings and paintings I made. They said that he was endowed with an artistic talent. And of course the praise from him made me keep drawing and painting.
My teaching experience brought me into contact with people who from the beginning had the same drive to imagine, visualize and create, but were discouraged from going further. Rejection from an instructor, a family member, a peer, or no encouragement at all, easily destroyed his fragile and burgeoning creative drive. As I said before, we are all programmed to create: it is the part of our brain that gives us the ability to progress in our lives beyond our daily tasks, past schedules, routines and commitments to imagine, visualize and yes, dream.
WHAT I TELL MY STUDENTS
When my students tell me that they would like to learn to draw or paint but haven’t done anything for years because someone said they drew a silly picture or that real learning involved memorizing facts and figures and anything creative was just silly, they apologize; as if their need to paint or draw was a silly waste of time, even if they were so compelled to do so. I tell you that your quest is great and noble because your total enrichment involves not only knowledge, but inspiration. I say that you already have the ability to create and that it is time for you to start learning how to reap the rich rewards of your creative efforts.
This dialogue affects a broad demographic: young, middle-aged and older people who need to improve their lives in some way. My youngest students often feel disenfranchised by a society that emphasizes rote learning. My middle-aged students feel that they have missed something vital in their lives, that they want to create, learn to draw or paint because their work and even their recreation have not satisfied them. Older students often feel like life has passed them by, even if they had been successful and retired comfortably. These are the common profiles of the students I instruct and this is their main basic theme for instructional need. What they all share in common is the need to use a part of their brain that needs to be activated and has not been activated throughout their daily lives and efforts.
CREATIVITY IS A PLACE
Creativity is a place we go. It has no borders or definitions. I know this location from my own work as an artist and I can see that location connected to the students. There is a palpable shift in thinking when this location is accessed. This place is a safe haven for inspiration, to meet your innate creative self, the one that connects you with your dreams, imagination and visions. It’s often a scary but powerful resource that feels oddly good and self-improving.
Much of the research and development in many fields, including medicine, science, literature, and computing, is done through the combination of knowledge and inspiration. Knowledge alone will not build a better product, idea, or world. Knowledge has limits, fences and barriers that often prevent inspiration from entering to move towards a higher goal or need.
A student of mine once commented after I gave him my “Inspiration versus Knowledge” reading:
“Okay, I guess that means when I write, if I correct my mistakes by word checking, that doesn’t necessarily improve my writing. So, I can use a protractor or a compass on my drawings, but that doesn’t guarantee that it will improve the writing.” He drew”.
That comment has stayed etched in my memory through the years. Yes, knowledge is a template, but it also requires an infusion of free-field thinking, the swimming stuff, the primary pond where new ideas grow that can be turned into exciting applications to improve the world.
