“Can Creativity be Taught?”  As a scientist, I believe this question is complete crap.  Creativity cannot be taught, it is inherent in our DNA.  Everyone has it.  If you boil down creativity to the basics, the definition may look like this: taking two distinct ideas and making a new one.  Simple illustration — a caveman picks up a stick and stabs something with it, now he has a spear.   Children do this.  They pick up a rolled up news paper, and now it becomes a light saber, or a submarine, or a Pterodactyl.  It’s something in our minds that allow us to use language or create symbology.

To me it is a clear path.  From being a ‘classically trained artist’, I know eye has to be developed.  The hand eye coordination will follow.  It’s natural.  Most people will equate being creative to being able to sculpt, draw, or paint.  That’s a limiting concept that people have to get over.  It’s an obstacle and a fear that acts as a barrier to creativity.

There is a photographer that I admire that authored a few book. I love his style of photographer, but some of his writing expresses limiting ideas.  In one of his books he illustrates a photo shoot that he had with a singer.  The author was talking about his methods of getting good portraits.  Then the author explained the great shot and the agreement that the subject had with the photographer.  Both would do their own thing.  The subject would hang out and be himself and the photographer would compose nicely and click the shutter.  After the photo was over, a corporate fella came over and wanted a happy snap with the singer.  The author explained how the corporate fella destroyed the mood.  The singer stiffened up and the photographer couldn’t get into his mode.  Finally, the author insinuated that the corporate fella wasn’t a creative type and couldn’t understand.

Well, that’s where I disagree.  Even if that corporate fella was an accountant, there are things that this person does in his daily life that are just as creative as this artist and the singer.  The original point was that he didn’t like staged photos.  Ok, I get that.  However, the underlying theme was selling the corporate fella short.  So what is creative in the corporate fella’s life?  For starters, if he’s an accountant, he understands some sort of math.  He sees a trend of what is happening in his company’s financials.  He then decides that it follows some recognizable trend.  He decides something needs to be done, so he things of another idea to apply that will result in a solution.

My wife say’s she is not creative at all.  Then I see her scrapbook projects and think…Quod Erat Demonstrandum.