We are all naturally creative. We’re constantly creating sound, movement, thought and emotions. We and the planet we live on are, at our most basic structure, single and multicellular organisms. We are defined by the commonality of creativity; cells create, grow, eat, excrete and decay.
Thinking about creativity as something you have or don’t have is really just a habit that is informed by culture. A more inclusive and accurate definition of creativity is that all things relate to living—and dying, for that matter. Just because something changes form doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t have a life after death, a legacy1.
When we adopt this definition of creativity, then each person or part of nature is a living creative act.
“Living as a creative act’‘ is a definition that allows room for concepts like growth, development and practice, as well as concepts of difference, death or living memory.
This definition also highlights the process vs. the outcome of good or bad. It’s an important shift in how we think about art education.
We have a culture that values good vs. bad mentalities, especially as it relates to art and design.
Let’s consider the role of moms for a moment. They are literally growing life but also figuratively nurturing a lot of life’s activity and goings on. Perhaps we can see how “living itself” is a creative act. Mom’s are some of the most creative people I know!
While some parts of motherhood are natural*, others are learned, unlearned, practiced and developed. The role of a mother is as complex as “creativity” or “art,” and it is constantly changing over time.
There is really so much that is universal about motherhood. And there is so much that is different within each family, generation, socioeconomically and geographically, as well as culturally.
Mothers are sometimes judged for how effective they are, whether they are good or bad moms. But motherhood is so much more complex than that. In fact, to define motherhood at all would require bringing a lot of our humanity to the table.
The same is true for defining what good art is.
Maybe what is the most truthful, is that there are no real definitions of what good or bad art is.
Rather, as the artist, distinguished professor and UC Berkeley department of art practice chair, Allan deSouza writes in How Art Can Be Thought: A Handbook for Change, that “art is a cultural and social practice… which enables art to be brought into language and to be investigated and discussed,” as objects of experience.
What we can say about motherhood and art making is that they often start with one image in our minds that ends up looking vastly different on canvas. Kids will do that to a picture, just scribble all over it, so to speak. They are their own little beings that change the picture we had in mind. They are creativity and variation in action.
Just like being a mother, it may be more meaningful to observe the processes of finding our own way through making art. It’s bringing all of what has shaped us and is shaping us presently to the process of who we are becoming. Over a lifetime, it makes art, with all the imperfections.
References:
deSouza, Allan. How Art Can Be Thought. Duke University Press, 2018, pp. 21-25 & 137-139
https://www.amazon.com/How-Art-Can-Be-Thought/dp/1478000473