Time to create

In my previous post I made comment to taking time out to create, or more specifically giving oneself permission to take time out to be creative by participating in a creative activity. It is fascinating listening to people when you start a conversation around creativity. I often find that people push back and quickly state that they are not creative, including myself.

So what is the definition of creative?

Relating to or involving the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/creative accessed 14/4/18

The definition allows for great breadth and depth to what ‘product’ may be the end result of being creative. Which I find interesting as I often limit creative product to art, but the definition has greater focus on the process.

Today I participated in a creative activity. I met with a diverse group of people who came together to weave at Design Tasmania. This video is a great example of the process, which involved skill development, iteration, questioning, thinking, researching and discussion. These six aspects of creating (and no doubt there are more) are possibly more important than the end product created.

It is during this process that so much is learnt.  During this workshop we learnt from Tasmanian Aboriginal Elders aspects of culture that are important to them. From a teacher perspective it is important to me, as a teacher and as someone who has taught and may teach in the future Humanities and Social Sciences, to better understand our people and their history and their now. Being a Design Technology teacher (Foods and Textiles) the connections are obvious re building skill and potential learning moments for a classroom. With regard to my current position it allowed me to see how another group are using social and I also had the opportunity to connect with a videographer and ask a few questions re the creative process that is undertaken in that area.

So what about me, the person that is not defined by my work, what did this opportunity really mean?

The workshop provided a moment to jump into learning and creating, where I immersed so deeply at times that nothing else entered my mind, the task of creating became the central focus. The conversations that occurred were non judgemental and provided the opportunity to connect with people I knew and people I didn’t on a range of levels. These conversations were a fascinating web of superficial chit chat, deeper personal sharing,  and supportive commentary. The iteration process allowed me to test (yes there were a few iterations) and then develop an understanding of technique and how it may shape the end product.

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It was a lovely couple of hours providing an escape from the usual Saturday happenings.