In the past, I’ve spoken about the need for discipline, self-forgiveness, letting go, or having goals for creating art. Today, I’d like to touch on creativity and the wellspring of its source.

There are  lots of people who have written on its subject, and a lot of people have opinions surrounding it as well as misconceptions. I think everyone is creative. We all have an aesthetic we naturally gravitate to. The only problem is that most of us only think of creativity as applied to artistry. Whether it’s visual arts, sculpture, music, dancing, or singing.

But did you consider the creativity it takes to design a building, the fashion we wear for the next season, solving a math problem in a new way, building a bookshelf, writing code, coming up with a new scientific theory, or building a better mousetrap?

My guess is no, because those things are not considered creative. In most people’s minds, it’s far from it. 

What’s required for creativity? In my humble opinion, it requires a problem that current solutions have not solved for. It’s situations like that that have led me to some creative sketches in my quest to figure things out. I like sketching because I need to visualize the solutions and find pleasing designs. I’ll spend hours and sometimes days working on  a design. Mostly because I’m constrained by materials, tools, cost, or knowledge. In the end, I’ll execute on the design that seems to satisfy me, even if it may not be the quickest to get done.

The truth is that a lot of those times, I didn’t think of myself as creative because I was taking an idea or process I saw somewhere else and adapted it to my situation. And yet, there have been countless times others told me how creative I was. I’ve had to admit to myself that I can be unexpectedly creative in my own humble way. 

Necessity is the mother of invention and the roots of creativity. Perhaps as you set out to create a work. Think of a problem and then instead of worrying about how good you want it to look, instead focus on a novel way to solve for that problem. You may, in the process, discover the very creativity you think you lack.