Hogwash! Pure and total hogwash! But, hogwash that I am familiar with. Had you asked me ten years ago if I was creative, I would probably have responded with a tentative “Yes? I guess so.” I mean, I thought I was kind of creative and I enjoyed doing creative things like scrapbooking, interior decorating, and quilting, but Art was literally my worst class in high school. My grades in Physics and Chemistry were higher and I had to call a smart friend after each chemistry experiment to ask, “What was supposed to have happened here and why?” I would adamantly have said, “I can’t draw.” So, while I enjoyed being creative, I felt that I was failing miserably in some areas that are key for creative people, like drawing.
But then, during the second phase of my creative play experiments that I described yesterday when I was the parent of a toddler, I realized that my toddler was wildly creative. She came home from day care every single day with a stack of paintings or collage art. She enjoyed mixing paint colors just to see what would happen. She painted her hands and made multiple hand print paintings because, well, why not? Watching her being fully creative, experimenting with anything and everything, without any question about her ability or whether she should try something, I realized that creativity had to be innate. We must all be born with it, I thought, because she’s way too young to have learned creativity and though I am her mother and I think she’s awesome, I also recognized that she was no different from any other kid in her class. Every parent went home with the same stack every day.
I got confirmation of the idea that creativity is innate reading Creative Confidence by Tom and David Kelley. We are all born creative, they argue, we just lose our confidence somewhere along the way to adulthood and stop believing that. As I have experimented with my own creative play, I have realized that it is a great way to get that confidence back. Sure, some of the stuff that I have created has been absolute crap, but I do have a trash can and I know how to use it. But, I have been happy with most of what I have created and I have found that doing something creative makes me feel creative. Bit by bit, one 15 minute exercise a day, my creative confidence has come back and now if you ask me if I am creative, the answer that you are going to get is “Yes!”
