Lesson One : Creativity.

Introduction of Creative Studies.

I'm Tan Wen Yong, 18 this year, passionate about Art & Design and willing to learn more philosophy of creativity to make more self improvement.

To all my readers, Hello and welcome to my Creative Studies blog.This blog is created for our Creative Studies class. Since the first week of the class, I was hoping that I can learn and understand the meaning of creativity and manage to explore the world of creative in many aspects. In the end of this semester for this subject, I hope I can become a creative and innovative person. =]

Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby something new is created which has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs. What counts as "valuable" is similarly defined in a variety of ways.

Scholarly interest in creativity ranges widely: the mental and neurological processes associated with creative activity; the relationship between personality type and creative ability; the relationship between creativity and intelligence, learning and mental health; and ways of fostering creativity through training and technology. [Wikipedia]
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

-Pablo Picasso

Well, do you know what is "Creative Studies”?


Creative Studies is one of the humanities subjects that we need to take in Faculty Creative Multimedia Alpha year. As you know by its name, it is a study about creativity. To study how to solve a problem creatively".
For your information, the objective of this subject is to develop student's ability to identify an issue or topic and from that carry out appropriate research, analysis and idea synthesis that will result in a unique, personal statement.

So What is CREATIVITY?

This is the formal answer that I can think of: Creativity is the ability to imagine or create something new, things that other people haven’t thought before. Creativity is not about creating something out of nothing. Generate new ideas by combining, changing and reapplying existing idea is the best way to create. Creativity is being creative to create creative things by using our creative brain.

Let see how others define Creativity.
Creativity is a mental process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fuelled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight. ----- [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity]

I define creativity as the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is the production or implementation of an idea. If you have ideas, but don't act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.

- By Linda Naiman

"Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being...creativity requires passion and commitment. Out of the creative act is born symbols and myths. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness-ecstasy."
- Rollo May, The Courage to Create

"A product is creative when it is (a) novel and (b) appropriate. A novel product is original not predictable. The bigger the concept and the more the product stimulate further work and ideas, the more the product is creative."
- Sternberg & Lubart, Defying the Crowd
[http://www.creativityatwork.com/articlesContent/whatis.htm]

Can you Learn to Be Creative?

Do you have to be born a creative person? Or will you suffer the fate of being dull and unimaginative for the rest of your life?

Can you learn to come up with great ideas or learn to create unique, original things like art, music, poetry or ingenious inventions?

What about creativity being something like making a lot out of a little?

These are all questions that I have thought about for a very long time. I never really thought of myself as being creative, and I see the same attitude with so many people. “I just can’t come up with good ideas” or “I can’t start my own business, I’m not creative enough”.

In my opinion, the lack of creativity comes from two things:

1-) Social Conditioning.

From the day we are born we start being taught what to do, how to live, what is right and what is wrong. We are trained to accept other people telling us what to do. We are trained to follow rules and systems, sometimes to the point of not even being explained WHY, but just being told that that is ‘the way things are’ and the way things have to be done.

In other words, we are hardly taught to think for ourselves. We are not truly taught how to play and be creative, and often free thinkers and creative people have to withstand a lot of judgment and criticism because they dare to be different and think outside the box.

2-) Self-limiting beliefs

Due to this social conditioning, we have no real experience with being creative, because our thought processes are so confined and restricted. When we do wander outside the box every now and then, and try to be creative, and it doesn’t work, or comes out horribly, we start to establish the belief that we are not creative. The more we try, and the more we mess up, the more we confirm our belief that we are not creative.

Once this self-limiting belief is in place, it is hard to break, and we often end up not even trying to do things that require creativity anymore.

Can you learn to be creative?

Absolutely!

Article adapted from http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/can-you-learn-to-be-creative/