Image collection walk in the woods -- great way to start a fall day!

Before

After

Also, did you all see that creepy face in the tree?

Can't wait to see what happens next in this project...

 

Creative Writers

This week we are cycling through a lot of different genres and perspectives to try to give you lots of things to see and hear and do and make and experience. We know that it is just a baby toe dip into this work, and that's ok. We will have opportunities to go back and revisit these things later in the course as well. 

Here is the link to the Google Slides shared in class -- the last one contains the homework instructions:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_nQsZTxS9omwQ7x2Mwf9Kfihi2DrPIPJT8Uj4Fh1CMU/edit?usp=sharing

Artistic Inspirations and Merging Genres of Creativity

 

Is it Legos or is a sneaker or is it both?

This week, we have looked at artists who get inspiration from lots of different sources and have lots of different types of process for their creative works and who push the boundaries of their art and even combine genres. When is food art and is it the color, the taste, the shape, the presentation, the landscape it comes from, or some combination of elements that makes it art? When is a jacket also pants and a skirt a gender-neutral item of clothing? When is writing a dance or a recipe or a poem, or is it the combination of styles that makes it a poem no matter how you experience it: reading or hearing or seeing. The Lego sneaker is a type of poetic art to me because it reminds me of our first Lego creations and Jack's collection of object and our David Byrne-inspired lighting landscapes using Legos. I feel like this class makes me look at the world through a different lens, and I am look at everything by how it relates to things we are talking about and doing in class. Is this sneaker art? Is it a poem? I think it is because it inspires me to think about the possibility of what you could create from Legos and how the combination of colors and textures would make me feel like skipping if I were wearing these.

Twyla Tharp and the Creative Autobiography

 Twyla Tharp’s “Creative Autobiography” 

https://www.coloradocollege.edu/offices/creativity-innovation/online-resources/Twyla%20Tharp-%20student%20.pdf

This is a great reflection exercise that puts you in touch with your own creative experiences. 

Please answer the following questions: 

1. What is the first creative moment you remember? 

2. Was anyone there to witness or appreciate it? 

3. What is the best idea you've ever had? 

4. What made it great in your mind? 

5. What is the dumbest idea? 

6. What made it stupid? 

7. Can you connect the dots that led you to this idea? 

8. What is your creative ambition? 

9. What are the obstacles to this ambition? 

10. What are the vital steps to achieving this ambition? 

11. How do you begin your day? 

12. What are your habits? What patterns do you repeat? 

13. Describe your first successful creative act. 

14. Describe your second successful creative act. 

15. Compare them. 

16. What are your attitudes toward: money, power, praise, rivals, work, play? 

17. Which artists do you admire most? 

18. Why are they your role models? 

19. What do you and your role models have in common? 

20. Does anyone in your life regularly inspire you? 

21. Who is your muse? 

22. Define muse. 

23. When confronted with superior intelligence or talent, how do you respond? 

24. When faced with stupidity, hostility, intransigence, laziness, or indifference in others, how do you respond? 

25. When faced with impending success or threat of failure, how do you respond? 

26. When you work, do you love the process or the result? 

27. At what moments do you feel your reach exceeds your grasp? 

28. What is your ideal creative activity? 

29. What is your greatest fear? 

30. What is the likelihood of either of the answers to the previous two questions happening? 

31. Which of your answers would you most like to change? 

32. What is your idea of mastery? 

33. What is your greatest dream? 

From The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

Creativity Tests 1960s vs. Today

The Torrance Test of Creativity was developed in 1962 by Paul Torrance.

It has thee components:

1. Thinking Creatively with Pictures measures creative thinking using three picture-based exercises to assess five mental characteristics: fluency, originality, elaboration, abstractness of titles, and resistance to closure (i.e., openness).

2. The Figural TTCT contains abstract pictures and the examinee is requested to state what the image might be. 

3. The Verbal  TTCT:  contains presents the examinee with a situation and gives the examinee the opportunity to ask questions, to improve products, and to “just suppose.” 

(The above info was taken from https://curtbonk.com/bobweb/d3.html.)

Here are some examples of test questions:

Directions:  

Try to think of things that no one else will think of.

Try to think of as many ideas as possible.

Add details to your ideas to make them complete.

Activity 1:  Imagine a basic stuffed rabbit. Try to improve this stuffed toy rabbit so that it will be more fun to play with. Take 3 minutes and think of as many things as you can in that time.

Activity 2: Just suppose that people could transport themselves from place to place with just a wink of the eye or a twitch of the nose. What might be some things that would happen as a result? You have 3 minutes.

Activity 3:  Add lines to the incomplete figures below to make pictures out of them.  Try to tell complete stories with your pictures.  Give your pictures titles.  You have 3 minutes. 

  

Activity 4:  Add details to the shapes below to make pictures out of them.  Make the diamond a part of any picture you make.  Try to think of pictures no one else will think of.  Add details to tell complete stories with your pictures.  Give your pictures titles.  You have 3 minutes. 

                    

This is a new test that was developed recently to measure creativity, and it is a verbal only test. Click on the link to take the test.

https://www.datcreativity.com/

Read more about this new creativity test and some others here:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/14/health/words-creativity-test-scn-wellness/index.html

Reflections on the First Two Weeks

 In the first two weeks of this class, we wanted to get you moving and experiencing and making and noticing. We asked you to 1) think about collections of objects, describe them, connect them to yourself, 2) build something with Lego bricks, name it, refine it, connect it to others' creations, 3) explore walking in a space in a normal way and with layers added, alone and with others, inside and outside, 4) use the five senses to notice what was around you in a way that you might not always pay attention to, 5) start recording what you noticed in your sketch books, 6) start writing about your experiences in your digital journal, and 7) start designing your collection bag for future walks and to hold future objects.

Basically, we did a lot of things, and all of them are not necessarily connected yet -- but it is a start to accessing the creative process, and we will return to many of these things and add to them as we move through the course. 

We have asked you to record what you noticed and what interested you, and I want to record a little of what I have noticed too. Here are two things:

1. I am very interested in shape, patterns, contrast, and mood/emotion. I like the way that people on a stage make pictures and how movement creates a story. When our class was "walking the space" in the Black Box, I reflected that it is very different to observe that rather than participate in it. I don't know if you could see or feel the big difference it made, for example, when you were walking in straight lines and using hard corners versus when you were flowing in circular shapes with curved turns and changes. It impacted the picture I saw and that effected the emotion and energy of the space. I wish that I had made a video of the process so that everyone could see what it looked like. But we will come back to that again when we study David Byrne's American Utopia...and maybe we will create a video then. I was inspired to experiment further, so I had my IB Theater class design some movements for their classes and use them too -- so thanks for giving me that idea.

2. I read a book called The Art of Noticing this summer, and that author focuses on creativity as a way of seeing and experiencing, and we will use a few of those prompts this term. One is the "five senses walk" and I noticed that in your write-ups of that experience, most people talked about 6 senses:

a) touch -- physical feeling, b) smell, c) sound -- hearing, d) sight -- seeing, e) taste -- (although most people did not actually go around tasting things as we walked which was smart), and f) atmosphere/mood/emotion -- a type of feeling that is not a physical feeling. 

That was so interesting to me because it was something that a lot of your talked about perceiving or noticing as you walked (and I noticed that too when you were walking the space) but it was not a tangible thing you could draw -- it was more of an invisible presence that you could feel or sense that perhaps came from or was connected to the things around you, or in some cases, was connected to what was inside you. In theater we look at how atmosphere is created by things like costuming and set design and how mood/emotion can alter a meaning -- one word said with different emotions changes the meaning of that word. This is something I am interested in exploring more too, as connected to the creative process. How do people change the basic 5 senses by adding their interpretation or perception of how they feel about them, what they associate with them, by adding a story to them? Perhaps that can be a working definition of what I see creativity as, for now, although I can add to it or revise it as I reflect more on the other activities and experiences we will have in this course.

Here is an article about the five senses and more, the sense of space, force, movement, balance.....and more: https://www.livescience.com/60752-human-senses.html

Here are two images of synesthesia (experiencing two or more senses as linked):

As we approach week three, think about different ways you can sense creativity in the world around you and notice what you notice when you access these 5 or more senses.

--Ms. Guarino

Object Representation Activity -- one example

 Ms. Guarino’s Creativity represented by a Zucchini Lasagna -- a traditional dish with my own spin on it

Homemade tomato sauce represents Stories and Relationships

I grew up in an Italian American household where someone was always in the kitchen making sauce and hanging out telling stories. This was a foundation for me as a writer and theater-maker. The center of much of my work is home, family, traditions, relationships, and I see storytelling as a way to connect to people.

Zucchini represents Originality

In my house growing up, we always had lasagna with beef in it, not vegetables. But I grew to love the crunchy taste of zucchini instead of beef, especially when I became vegetarian. I think this shows that as much as I value traditions as a creative person, I also value experimentation and breaking the rules to discover your own signature style.

Squiggly Noodles represents Embracing your "Weird"

At the heart of lasagna is the noodles, and they seem like pieces of art to me in their creative shape. They remind me to “Why be flat when you can be squiggly?” They also get very bendy once you cook them, reminding me to invest in the process of becoming something more interesting rather than just accepting the first idea I have. 

Cheese represents Offbeat Humor and Fun

In my opinion, making any type of art has to be fun.  My friends and family know that I appreciate lots of different kinds of humor and am not afraid to embrace the “cheese factor” if it can add to the zaniness of a moment or a scene.

Rectangle shape represents First Impressions don’t give the Whole View

My mom always makes her lasagna in the same rectangular pan. It looks like a clearly defined structure that doesn’t have anything “outside the box.” However, the best thing about lasagna is the layers you see when you cut into it, the combinations of textures and flavors hidden beneath the exterior view. That is how creativity is for me too; I get pleasure in combining different things and using contrast to make more than a box inside a box.