So, You Think You’re Not Creative?

Several years ago I experienced an artistic ‘hibernation’ — or so it seemed to me at the time. After a lifelong love affair with art, music, and filmmaking, very little of those creative endeavors were emerging from me. It was rather depressing… and yet out of the blue I slowly began developing skills in two new areas that I never imagined I’d get so involved with: cooking and gardening. Quite a surprise to me! These were skills that I had always appreciated but didn’t fully value until I undertook them from an (accidentally) creative standpoint myself.

Daikon White Radishes

Once every two weeks, thanks to the generosity of a friend, a big box of vegetables would be dropped off at my door from a local organic farm. I knew all the ‘usual’ vegetables, but many of these were quite exotic to me, and I’d have to consult online veggie encyclopedias just to figure out what the mysterious foods were that I was holding in my hand. Some were so odd and twisted, and painted with such bizarre hues. I loved just looking at them and marveling at the variety of ‘creatures’ the earth sprouts for us.

For the first month or two, I’d pull out several good recipe books I owned, and follow the steps to put together some very delicious meals. But it didn’t take long before I got the reputation for messing with the recipes and changing them around until they no longer resembled the original recipes. I developed an understanding of what flavors went well with others, and soon I was concocting my own culinary creations. When serving these new savory ensembles I’d use artistry in the way they were presented, carefully choosing side dishes that would complement the main course not just flavor-wise, but in color and aroma as well, and using edible flowers to garnish the foods. I kept surprising myself with what was emerging from my tiny kitchen and big imagination, and after a while, found myself with my own personal cookbook.

At the same time I was taking long walks through my new neighborhood. Each time I’d go for a walk I’d notice unusual things — as long as I remembered to stay out of my head and consciously observe my surroundings. I’d stop to watch how bees pollinated flowers (one woman finally came out of her house suspiciously asking why I had been staring at her flowers so intently for so long), or to ‘commune’ with a spectacular Great Horned Owl who was causing an enormous stir with the crows in the neighborhood. (I actually thought he was made of plastic at first because he was as still as a statue for so long… until he suddenly spun his head around and stared straight into my eyes!). I’d also watch the studious workmanship of an ant colony, and stop and sniff any flower that grabbed my olfactory curiosity.

"Passionflower" photo by Tanakawho (via Wikimedia Commons)

It was springtime, and I quickly became aware of the incredible ‘art’ that people had created through the design of flowers and plants and vegetables in their yards and gardens. Some were such stunning displays, that I’d have to stop and gaze in awe. These gardens were every bit as beautiful as my favorite Marc Chagall paintings, and were sometimes as Dadaist as any of Salvador Dali’s limbs-draped-on-crutches paintings. (You know exactly what I mean if you’ve seen the extremely sexy and alien Passionflower vine!).

Inspired, I went home one day and dug my hands into the crummy, hard-packed soil in my own yard. For months I yanked out huge rocks and pulled out nearly 1,000 dandelions (some of which I left because they are so beautiful too). I filled the holes with fine, dark humus. I studied a host of books on plant varieties, taking notes on what light and water conditions my favorite ones required, what season and for how long they bloomed, their height and width, and how their colors changed during their life cycle. I soon had detailed designs for trellises with flowering vines, scent gardens (there is a Cosmo flower that smells like chocolate!), for dramatic black and red displays, for a vegetable and exotic herb garden, and elaborate flower gardens for full-sun, and full-shade areas of my yard.

Barbara's "Clematis"

By the following year, when many of my plants had really taken root and were blooming large and happily, I would often see people walking by my house who would stop in awe — just as I had done with other people’s yards — and point at my vibrantly-colored clematis with six-inch-wide blossoms I had growing up the fence, so packed with flowers that you could hardly get through the little gate any longer; I caught kids cheerfully picking my candy-flavored strawberries that I had planted on the outside of my fence specifically for passersby to ‘steal’; I gave bags of lettuce and arugula and pounds of cherry tomatoes to friends; I even made my garbage collector’s day when I handed him extra strawberry and tomato plants that had come up on their own one spring.

Then one day, seemingly overnight, I ‘woke up’ from my artistic ‘hibernation’: A multitude of dreamy collages came flooding out of me. I was invited to screen my films at a special retrospective show of my work. I suddenly had the urge to dust off my bass guitar and begin playing it again after it had sat quietly in its case for many years  — along with playing the new drum set that I bought to practice my new drum lessons on, and the sax that I rented and taught myself how to play. I began writing music almost daily. I was so thrilled that my ‘hibernation’ had finally ended!

However I couldn’t help but notice that the more I created art, music, and films, the less time and creative energy I had for the wonderful cooking and gardening skills I had so beautifully fostered. Maybe my artistic ‘hibernation’ hadn’t been a hibernation at all; perhaps my creative energies had simply shifted to other areas for a time.

As a full-time musician and artist again, I am lucky if I spend the time to cook a rainbow-colored stir-fry for myself anymore, since a more common dinner these days is just an apple or two with chunks of cheese, or a microwaved veggie burger with a side of lettuce and herbs. I live in an apartment and take care of just three lovely indoor plants that require very little assistance. There are so many ways to be creative, and all of them take time, energy, and inspiration. So my creative interests — for the time being anyway — are no longer occupied by cooking and gardening. But I absolutely believe that any time ANYTHING is done with flair, gusto, originality, or depth of emotion of any sort, it comes from the same creative source that the best musical compositions come from. It takes imagination to put together a truly delicious and unique meal, to design a beautiful garden, to decorate one’s abode, to pick out gifts perfectly suited for another person and even to wrap those gifts in unusual ways. One can view the world through the eyes of an artist the very moment they suddenly become aware of their surroundings, seeing the sky and the wonder of the clouds as something new and quite miraculous; hearing a dance rhythm in a repetitive mechanical sound; observing passersby’s faces like frames from a movie and wondering what their back-story might be.

"White Tiger" collage by Barbara

If you are a person who feels that creativity is reserved only for artists (and you don’t necessarily consider yourself an artist), I hope you will spend this week consciously acknowledging and honoring your creativity in whatever form it may take in your life. Then see if your views on what creativity is, and whether or not you ‘have it’ change…

I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this subject — so please leave a comment below! How does creativity show up in your life?

Wishing you all a joyful and CREATIVE life ~

Over and out!

Barbara