When meeting new people people, I am always curious when someone tells me they are not creative. If you’ve followed me awhile, you know I think everyone is creative. We’re born with it, but somewhere along our journey the creativity shifts. Most little children love to color/scribble on things. So where does it all go with those proclaiming “not to having a single creative born in their body.”
I think it goes to other things. I am a left brain/right brain kind of person. I majored in environmental biology and wildlife science in college. And, in past careers, I worked as a field biologist, web developer and technical editor.
All of these interests remain part of who I am, but I can see in each how my creative thinking assisted me. I’m a visual learner. When I work on technical tasks, I look for visual and rhythmic (e.g., repeating) patterns. Its a very creative way to get things accomplished.
When I have down time, I like to work on projects that are mindless…but have a rhythm to them. Knitting is a good example of my “to go” projects. There’s a rhythmic beat to knitting (e.g, “knit one, purl two, repeat”). When I take me scribble sampler with me, I’ve noticed that I look for patterns in the stitches and how I place colors or objects. I start kind of random, but as the projects advances I’m thinking balance. “Do I have too much pink on one side or the other?” “Should there be more or less open space covering the background fabric.” It is analytical thinking because I’m looking for patterns.
This all come to me this week while I sat at the dealer waiting for my car to get serviced. I like to bring something to occupy my time while I’m waiting. This week it was my scribble sampler and it had me thinking. I wonder, do you bring a project with you to work on while you’re waiting?