“There is a myth, common in American culture, that work and play are entirely separate activities. I believe they are more entwined than ever before.”

Laura Seargeant Richardson, a principal designer at global innovation firm frog design, continues: “A playful mind thrives on ambiguity, complexity, and improvisation—the very things needed to innovate and come up with creative solutions to the massive global challenges in economics, the environment, education, and more.”

From my post Creative Development: Actively Caress Wonder. Play.

Creative endeavors often start small.

One of a number of articles about him notes that “Nine-year-old Caine Monroy spent last summer creating an elaborate cardboard arcade in his dad’s used auto parts store in east Los Angeles, armed with little more than packaging tape and whatever materials he could find.

“I have never been a fan of learning in a classroom. Inside a laboratory or a garage, I always wanted to know more, but never inside a classroom.”

Caltech physicist Caolionn O’Connell, PhD.

“It is often said that education and training are the keys to the future. They are, but a key can be turned in two directions.”

Ken Robinson continues, “Turn it one way and you lock resources away, even from those they belong to. Turn it the other way and you release resources and give people back to themselves.

“To realize our true creative potential—in our organizations, in our schools and in our communities—we need to think differently about ourselves and to act differently towards each other. We must learn to be creative.” [From his book "Out of Our Minds."]

“I started out as a painter, and then painting led to cinema… Then cinema led to so many different areas…” David Lynch

In her book, Mary-Elaine Jacobsen quotes some insightful comments by Annemarie Roeper (founder of the Roeper School and The Roeper Review, a professional journal on the gifted) about the intense inner pressure to create as a characteristic of high ability people:

“Gifted adults may be overwhelmed by the pressure of their own creativity. The gifted derive enormous satisfaction from the creative process.

“Much has been written about this process: how it works, the pressure of the inner agenda, the different phases it involves, the excitement and anxiety that comes with it, and the role played by the unconscious.”

She adds, “I believe the whole process is accompanied by a feeling of aliveness, of power, of capability, of enormous relief and of transcendence of the limits of our own body and soul. The ‘unique self’ flows into the world outside. It is like giving birth.

“I love breaking the myth of the starving artist. That is such a lie that people tell artists from the day they are born, and it’s so sad that so many artists psych themselves out with this myth.”

Musician Magdalen Hsu-Li continues, “There is always a way to make a great living from music or any art form if you are willing to use your creativity to the business aspect.

“People think that creativity should only be in art and the business should be in business. But the most successful business people use their intuition and creativity to problem solve and figure out how to make things work.”

How do you think about being creative versus the business aspects of success, like marketing? Do you see them as separate, even mutually exclusive?

Do you think of creative expression as something more “spiritual” or “pure” than sales or business?

The photo – “Artist at work” by Balaji Dutt – reflects how many creative people typically work: engrossed, and happily solitary.

We may see and read about many examples of successful – even extravagantly successful – artists, but they are usually celebrities, and mostly not solitary creative workers.

There is not much media attention on the millions of creative people with careers in film production, book cover illustration, fashion design, video game creation and so many other creative occupations – many of them often working as entrepreneurs, responsible for their own achievement and success.

Many creators probably don’t think much about the value of marketing to get their ideas and creations out to a wider audience, to have more impact and success.

Links to a variety of sites with articles on creativity research by multiple authors, plus courses, programs & books for developing creativity and innovation.

Sites / Blogs
- – - -

Creating in Flow – “Insights and advice about all forms of creative expression” – By Susan K. Perry, PhD, a social psychologist, writer, and writing consultant.

Creativity at Work: Developing creativity and innovation in organizations

Founder: Linda Naiman – a creativity and innovation consultant. “Our focus is on leadership and team development, creativity, collaboration, and cultivating environments that foster innovation.”

~~~~~~~

“An artist must actively caress wonder: for fascination, like the desire to play, can be eradicated by the rigors of living.” Eric Maisel

“There is a myth, common in American culture, that work and play are entirely separate activities.”

That is a quote by Laura Seargeant Richardson, a principal designer at frog design, who “specializes in the emotional, social, participatory and future design of products and environments.”

She writes: “There is a myth, common in American culture, that work and play are entirely separate activities. I believe they are more entwined than ever before.

“As the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget once said, “Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.” A playful mind thrives on ambiguity, complexity, and improvisation—the very things needed to innovate and come up with creative solutions to the massive global challenges in economics, the environment, education, and more.”

Continued: Creative Development: Actively Caress Wonder. Play.

~ ~

Just find your passion and get to work on creating your art or creative business venture, right?

It isn’t always so easy or straightforward.

Once they reach a certain level of achievement and acclaim, artists such as Michelangelo – or David Lynch or Lady Gaga – may be more free to be passionate and contrary or eccentric.

But as Andrea Kuszewski notes in the following post, there are often conflicting attitudes and suppressive attitudes toward creative children and adults.

Listening to Walter Isaacson (in his interview with Charlie Rose) about his new bio of Steve Jobs, one of his comments that caught my attention was this [paraphrased]:

“The deep emotionalism surprised me. He’d be talking and I looked up and there were tears… He was talking about the ad campaign ‘Here’s to the Crazy Ones’ and he got very emotional.”

Here is a quote from the bio, by Joe Nocera, then a writer for Esquire, describing Jobs’ intensity at a NeXT computer staff meeting:

“It’s not quite right to say that he is sitting through this staff meeting because Jobs doesn’t sit through much of anything; one of the ways he dominates is through sheer movement. One moment he’s kneeling in his chair, the next minute he’s slouching in it; the next he has leaped out of his chair entirely and is scribbling on the blackboard directly behind him. He is full of mannerisms. He bites his nails. He stares with unnerving earnestness at whoever is speaking. His hands, which are slightly and inexplicably yellow, are in constant motion.”

Of course, you can write a book for yourself alone, but most writers want to reach an audience, and have many people reading their creations.

Some interesting statistics:
1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
[From the site: HotForWords.]

With all the evolutions in how people consume entertainment and information, the delivery channels of journalism, literature and other forms of writing are also changing. Writers need to be more entrepreneurial.