Creativity Defined
Just yesterday I was talking with someone I’d consider to be a true artist. We were talking about how the terms “artist” and “creativity” have entered an era of history where they are being thrown around all the time. Even at Sipping n’ Painting we like to say “everyone is an artist” – and I totally believe that. But since art has had such a subjective meaning throughout the years, I thought it would be interesting to research how creativity is defined. Here are some thoughts below from Human Motivation, by Robert E. Franken. It’s a little academic – but I hope you enjoy – and more then anything – this definition reminds me of how important creativity is in all areas of life – in conflict, planning, leadership, relationships – you name it, we need more of it.
- Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.
- In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives. the ability to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown.
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