...creativity = contentedness?...

Do overly creative people seem more content?

There are some people among us who literally MUST create in some way or another. This “need” of course comes in many different colours, and in varying strengths, but for most artists/artisans, it is a very important part of living!

Why do we create at all? It seems a rather silly, frivolous part of living does it not? Some people are cutting open ill patients and reconstructing them so that they might live longer and live well, others are in labs, experimenting with the use of chemicals to solve world - wide problems, some are manipulating numbers and working in the world of mathematics, and others are running electrical wires through buildings, allowing for light and power, while others are laying bricks, providing shelter and warmth…. then there are artists - obsessing over shades of blue and green, silver or gold.

I have thought long and hard about this, questioning the worth and merits of being an artisan.

I have been creative all of my life - from as far back as I can remember! I have always had to be doing something artistic - in some way, shape or form…or else I would feel pent up, trapped, tied down emotionally and restless. I have been a potter, a gardener, a floral designer, a graphic designer, a picture framer, a print maker, a painter, an event designer, a curriculum designer, a teacher…and, of course a mother. What good has any of these creative ventures done for this world (aside from providing some awesome new people in the world - who might make it a better place)?

While so many others can get so easily pulled down by the weight of the world and all it’s deficits, I (along with most of the creative people I know) seem to bounce along for the most part - content in an imperfect and unjust world that I cannot change in any major way, while trying to help others see the positives in life.

Artistically, the things that most captivate me, and inspire me (along with most other artists or designers) are the things of nature. There are of course the hugely obvious things - oceans, mountains, stars, landscapes etc. But for me, its the little, almost invisible things that grab me. The things that are so common place, and over looked - but when you stop and really take it in, they are quite frankly miraculous! If you read artists’ statements, the vast majority of them inevitably credit nature (or some aspect there of) for their ultimate source of inspiration. It is very rarely anything human-made that inspires art (I believe).

Now, if we look at all the nasty, horrible, unthinkable aspects of living on this planet (aside from natural disasters and diseases), they have all pretty much come about at the hands of mankind - not nature itself.

Nature is something organic, wondrous, and fruitful, that, for the most part provides us with all that we truly NEED (not necessarily what we want). Its whole purpose is to make more of itself - to create! It just keeps creating over and over and over again.

I wonder if my own need to be creative is partially a way to counteract the fallen human aspects of life, and to focus on something small that I can control? Is it a small way of conjoining nature by creating something I feel is beautiful? Perhaps being an artist is waging war on the darkness and ugliness that has always been (and will always be) a part of life. Creating beauty urges one to pull ones attentions away from darkness, and toward beauty (and hopefully goodness, and truth)…in order for others to enjoy it, and to spread the peace of creating.

Perhaps by taking notice of the small things around us, and forcing ourselves to see the art, the beauty, and the creation in all of it, we join with, and orient ourselves toward that beauty, while turning our backs on that which we do not wish to be pulled down by - that which we cannot control?

Hmmm….this requires further thought….