Since I’ve started to adhere to one of my biggest new years resolutions, create something every day, I’ve been contemplating the meaning and the essence of what creativity is, what it is to create and what is exactly considered a creation. Of course this conjures up all those discussions about the definition of art and the validity of design, and while I would love to discuss those questions, that is a text block for another today. Today is a more general feeling, a more general question, a more general theme. It makes me feel somewhat lightheaded with possibilities.
If you Google ‘creativity’ you will find the definition to be ‘the ability to create’. So we all have the ability to be creative? Am I talking about the ability to create and be creative in an artistic sense, or in a reproductive sense? What is the difference? There is none. While reproduction and the creation of a child may be considered to be an uncontrollable and unchangeable production of something, is it not also the process of cells moving, combining, dividing, developing, growing and essentially creating? You are a creation, you are a piece of art. You have been created, and not in religious sense but in a sense that is a beautiful amalgamation of science and art. I don’t mean this to sound fluffy and loving and sentimental, I wish to make a point. Simply being is an act of creativity. This is just the basis for what I am trying to say, perhaps making it more self-directed and human-centric will help people to understand and agree.
Having said that every person is a creation I wish to put forward that every animal and insect is also a creation and the product of some creativity. Furthermore, having said that, I have to explain what I believe to be the most ‘creative creation’ and truly the most incredible piece of art and design that has and ever will be… that is nature. Technically and theoretically speaking, and according to definition, nature is indeed both a possessor of great creativity and also a creation. What kind of Stuckist defined creation, for example a painting, can regenerate itself, destroy itself and everything, sustains itself and everything and is also incredibly beautiful and falls into insane, impeccable mathematical equations? (NB: Math is also a creation, a beautiful creation at that. And it also creates.) If there exists something like this, then I’d venture to say it is based on nature and nature-based scientific principles. If this is all sounding very Pagan and ‘witchy’ to you, then, to be honest, you are both close-minded and immature.
The final point that I wish to get to is this. A friend on mine, the enormously talented Adam Corcoran, said that ‘good design should be invisible‘ and I completely agree. That is why the things I highlighted as being artistic creations or artistically creative (that are usually considered an entirely different kind of ‘creation’) are hardly ever noticed. They are good design, they are the most successful creations. Creations that we cannot imagine living without, and never do.
What is the most creative thing that I think, we can do? To see this invisible creation and creativity, comprehend and document it’s beauty. To learn from it and to use it as inspiration and a basis for more good creations.
