By Douglas Eby
“If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude.”
That is a quote by creativity researcher and author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who describes a number of pairs of “paradoxical” traits exhibited by creative people, such as both convergent and divergent thinking; extroverted and introverted; humble and proud.
See my post The Complexity of the Creative Personality and my SlideShare presentation below.
In his book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention he makes some interesting comments about evaluating artists using projective tests like the Rorschach (ink blot) or the Thematic Apperception Test.
Continue reading… »
By Douglas Eby
Author Susan Cain declares: “Without introverts, the world would be devoid of: the theory of gravity; the theory of relativity; W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming”; Chopin’s nocturnes; Proust’s In Search of Lost Time; Peter Pan…”
She quotes science journalist Winifred Gallagher: “The glory of the disposition that stops to consider stimuli rather than rushing to engage with them is its long association with intellectual and artistic achievement.
“Neither E = mc2 nor Paradise Lost was dashed off by a party animal.”
Continue reading… »
By Douglas Eby
Articles and other resources for helping you gain new perspectives and be more creative: ideas for enhancing creativity and innovation.
Continued from How To Be More Creative.
~~~~~~~
Need a Creativity Jolt? Drop by a Modern Art Show
By Lawrence E. McCullough | Mar 21, 2013
Synopsis: 8 Imagination Boosters I got from SCOPE New York 2013
WHAT’S TRULY WONDERFUL about so much of today’s visual Art is that it engages every sense, not just what you see (or think you see).
Next time you’re caught in a creative dry spell, spend a while wandering through a Contemporary Art show and have a universe of new ideas rain down on your parched psyche.
Continue reading… »
By Douglas Eby
This series of posts on “How To Be More Creative” offers articles, books and other resources on developing creative thinking and innovation, and enhancing our creative expression.
My other Creative Mind posts, hopefully, do that as well – but these new posts specifically provide brief excerpts of selected material by other authors that have a more “how to” flavor. Feel free to make any comments or suggestions.
Creative Thinking: How to Be More Creative (with Science!)
by Gregory Ciotti
“Have you ever wished you were more creative? If you do creative work, have you ever suffered from a creative block and been stuck wondering what exactly is wrong, and how you can get yourself out of it?”
~~~~~~~~
Continue reading… »
By Douglas Eby
“Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand — but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.”
Zadie Smith
The acclaimed novelist, essayist and short story writer offers more advice on creating in the post Zadie Smith’s 10 Rules of Writing, by Maria Popova.
Smith is among the finalists for the Women’s Prize, known formerly as the Orange Prize, for “NW: A Novel.”
Her comment about “never being satisfied” reminds me of the famous quotes of dancer Martha Graham: “No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
“There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
Continue reading… »
By Douglas Eby
[See Part 2]
“Sometimes you’ve got to let everything go – purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything…whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.”
Tina Turner
Helping ourselves get as free as possible to create can take many forms, of course. Including, for Tina Turner and many other people, getting out of a destructive relationship.
Psychologist Cheryl Arutt believes “the best way to protect the art is to protect the artist.
“Learning how to regulate internal states, how and when to use self-soothing techniques, and how to know when we are actually safe — these are key to emotional well-being for anyone, but for artists, they are especially useful.”
She adds, “The ability to self-regulate provides an all-access pass for traveling the internal world, allowing the artist to mine for the gems that can be found there… without losing touch with the light of day.”
Continue reading… »
By Douglas Eby
[See Part 1]
“My whole life has been about trying to heal the rift between the two sides of my personality, the feeling too much and the knowing too much.”
That is a comment by Actress / Producer / Director Jodie Foster, from an interview about her film “Little Man Tate” in the book: Great Women of Film.
Her perspective is one I certainly can relate to – what about you?
The idea of “too much” – or at least unusually intense – thinking and emotion has been articulated by psychologist and psychiatrist Kazimierz Dabrowski, MD, PhD, who described creative and high ability people having over-excitabilities or intensity in five areas: intellectual, psychomotor, imaginational, emotional, or sensual.
Continue reading… »
By Douglas Eby
“I would burst from all of the emotion inside.”
How do you work with your strong emotions? Creative people experience a wide range and depth of intense emotions, and use that wealth of feeling to create artwork and performances.
The idea of overseeing or regulating emotions is not necessarily about suppressing or stifling, but about staying aware and in control of our feelings, to live with a higher level of well-being, and be more creative.
The quote above is from Gloria Reuben, who said: “The thing I love most about acting is that while I am doing a scene, I am allotted all of the freedom to feel. Sometimes, actually I find that most times in life, one is not able to fully express what one feels.
“And I am the kind of person that feels so much that if I didn’t have acting (and music), I would burst from all of the emotion inside!”
[From officialgloriareuben.com; photo from "Lincoln"]
Continue reading… »
By Douglas Eby
Ang Lee recently won his second Academy Award as best director for “Life of Pi” (his first was for “Brokeback Mountain”).
In an article on leadership, Susan Cain gives a number of examples of “effective Asian-American leaders” including Lee, and others: “novelist Chang Rae-Lee; fashion designer Vera Wang; New York Times literary critic Michiko Kakutani…the list goes on and on.”
From Are Asian-Americans Too Quiet to Lead U.S. Businesses?
One of the stars of “Life of Pi,” Adil Hussain, described how the Taiwanese filmmaker works.
He commented that Ang Lee is “so sensitive and the way he directs you is so silent. He’d whisper into your ear what he has to say.
Continue reading… »
By Douglas Eby
Being relatively free of disabling moods like high levels of depression and anxiety can enhance and release creative thinking, but a number of writers and psychologists think too much focus on the pursuit of happiness may be limiting how we develop creativity.
“I’m not crazy, I’ve just been in a very bad mood for 40 years.”
Ouiser Boudreaux (Shirley MacLaine), in Steel Magnolias (1989).
As Shirley MacLaine has also noted, “Art is about energy, positive and negative. All art has the power to heal because it helps us see who we are, and what we resist.”
Continue reading… »
