I believe the nature of creativity is transformational. Walking around in a city, taking in the sites and sounds, I am highly aware of the physical change that has taken place over time. I notice everything around me has been created and it is an incredible thing to observe the grandeur of physical evidence of generations of creative efforts and outcomes layered upon each other interacting across time, in the moment in space before my eyes. Creativity provides us with the opportunity to transform not only the physical world around us but also the internal world.
One of the reasons I have gravitated to visual art is that it can enable us to make sense of our feelings and to process emotions. I use expressive creativity to help me and others come to an understanding and a connection to feeling. “A lot of personal suffering does finds its outlet in the arts. Quite a few creators come from troubled beginnings or circumstances, which include difficult childhoods, poverty, traumatic loss, and physical or mental illness” (Richards, 2015 p. 518). Incubating on this application for creativity motivates me to create.
At its most impactful, an act of creativity provides a means by which an individual, a small group, large mass of people or the world can develop new perspectives, understanding, incarnations and iterations of reality through the experience itself or the manifestation of the activity which is independent from the constraints of time. There are so many positive contributions that have stemmed from creative expression and that are scalable from the everyday, singular, personal benefits people experience such as improved mental and physical health and career success to the larger contexts and altruistic ones that have an impact on our collective beliefs, humankind and the health of the Earth itself. |
The products of our encounters can serve as transformative experiences in others. I have experienced this when sitting in front of a painting or other artwork, the piece itself opening me up to a new point of view or eliciting a deep emotional response that leaves me changed. When one is engaged in a deep quality encounter, there is an opportunity for change. “Creativity’s importance can most readily be seen across levels of accomplishment. In focusing on the Big-C or eminent level, creativity is a key force in progress” (Kaufman & Beghetto). Creativity is important for survival. Indeed creativity is the very process by which we adapt proactively and reactively to change and initiate it in our environments (Puccio, Mance & Switalski, 2012, p.18). |